


Something To Believe

by Daisey_May



Category: American Gods (TV), American Gods - Neil Gaiman
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Falling In Love, Fluff, Love, Redemption, Resurrection, Sex, Spoilers, True Love, madwife
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-11
Updated: 2020-02-22
Packaged: 2020-03-01 02:26:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 16
Words: 49,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18791128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daisey_May/pseuds/Daisey_May
Summary: She moved through death like she had moved through life: Believing in nothing, avoiding the truth.That was, until, she was faced with a truth that she couldn't avoid, and death, unlike life, took on a new meaning.Will Laura Moon finally choose the right path?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Story begins at the end of S02, E07, _Treasure of the Sun_.

# Chapter 1

Bilquis had told her where to find him, as if she knew she would want to go to him.

That one, Laura mused, knows more than she lets on. They all do, she supposed.

But Bilquis...Laura revered her in way that was different than the others. She moved at a slower pace, and watched with an unwavering focus, like a snake stalking its prey. She had felt her energy through the skin of her lips when she kissed her at the diner, and in the way she her dark eyes never left Laura’s, even as she moved around her in a lazy circle. They burned through her as if she were seeing Laura’s path written deep within her soul, like she knew something Laura didn't, leaving her feeling exposed, something she rarely ever allowed.

Her instinct to deflect kicked in instantaneously, without a moment of hesitation. Bilquis might have known, but that didn’t mean she had to admit it. She still had that power. Without the remaining scraps of her stubbornness and pride to cling to, she didn’t know who she was. She wasn’t ready for that version of herself just yet.

Stopping at the threshold, her legs felt numb, heavy. She didn’t want to move forward, to face the truth beyond the doors, but ultimately there was no going backwards. Her past was gone, and it had been gone long before Shadow spoke that truth in the graveyard. That moment… that had just been the period placed at the end of a very long sentence. One that she had dragged out through life and on into death, whether she realized it or not.

_He_ knew though, she thought, pursing her lips and looking down at her feet. Would he even be lying dead in that room if she had just listened to him, believed him?

In life she had never believed in anything. In death, the only thing she let herself believe in had turned out to be the one thing that she should have let go. She had doggedly placed her faith on the wrong path, and because of that she found herself here, facing its consequences.

This is why I should never believe in something, she thought bitterly.

She squeezed her eyes shut, took several deep and unnecessary breaths, and pushed through the heavy wooden door into the mortuary.

Her heart should have been racing, but it wasn’t. She should have felt anxiety rising, a rush of blood pounding in her ears, drowning out the sound of the already still room, but she didn’t.

More so now than any other time before, she was acutely aware of the stillness of her own body. For the first time since had pulled herself from her own cold grave, she noticed.

It was unsettling.

In a moment when she should be racked with nerves, her systems kicking and firing, her body couldn’t have been more silent.

She slowly opened her eyes, squinting slightly as they adjusted to the room. Golden, midday sunlight filtered through the blinds and the heavy open drapes of the mortuary. It cast the room in a hazy, warm glow despite the cool dampness of the air.

To keep the bodies from rotting too quickly, she thought to herself sardonically, remembering all too well the sensation of maggots swirling in her stomach and the pieces of flesh pulling from her bones. And the smell, she wouldn’t ever forget the smell. He wouldn’t let her forget it, she thought, her lips turning up slightly at the corner at the memory.

How ironic then, to find him here. The butt of his own joke. She wished he were awake so she could begin the onslaught of dead jokes and quips that he had slung at her so flippantly. An even playing field.

How closely their paths were intertwined. The idea of being connected, as much as she had tried to force it from her mind, from her heart and her body, had burrowed in. A knowing. A deep understanding. The pieces were linking quickly in her mind in a way that they had only done so briefly before.

From the moment he had burst into her hotel room, to their intimate closeness at the hands of the Baron’s spell, there had been a sensation. A spark that pulsed so suddenly and powerfully that at times it nearly slipped from her lips as both a question and a statement, “We’ve met before”.

A familiarity? A connection? At the end of the day, she hadn’t been sure what to call it, and subsequently she had been quick to forget it, to force it from her mind. It didn’t fit within the purpose she had sold to herself. She pushed it away with cruel remarks, physical violence, and utter disdain.

She had met him in the middle of their shared uncertainty. Word for word, punch for punch. Like looking into a mirror that she wanted to smash into thousands of pieces. A reflection she was unwilling to face.

But now they are here, and the game feels over. She could keep pretending, but what would that be worth? Your truth will always find you. It only lies in waiting for so long.

Time felt as if it were moving too slowly. She saw the table where his body lay, and approached. She dare not let her eyes jump to his face. She couldn’t bare to look just yet.

She folded her arms protectively around herself. She wasn’t ready.

Stopping next to the metal table, a table she had been lying on not too long ago, she cautioned a glance, glimpsing his large leather boots and dusty pants smattered with a deep red. Her eyes snapped closed and she swallowed hard.

Fuck, she thought.

There was a burning that began in the empty pit of her stomach and moved to the center of her chest. She desperately wanted to believe it was the rot stirring up once again, the maggots kept at bay for only so long, though she knew it was something entirely different. It was a feeling she was not always familiar with. A feeling of panic and disbelief and of something else entirely that she couldn’t quite put her finger on. Or better yet, she didn’t want to put her finger on.

Closer now she moved, the rising sensation taking over and pushing her forward. She lifted her eyes, ran them up the length of his body. The moment her eyes met his face, she couldn’t force herself to look away, even if she had tried. The sensation, now settled firmly in her chest, roared at its loudest. A low, long sigh dispelled the anticipation and disbelief that had been building and she shuddered with the loss. She shuddered at the realization.

The flush of his face, the slight part of his still pink lips. Any signs of a battle lost wiped cleanly from his skin. He could be sleeping, she thought sadly. The closeness to him, she felt it. It moved through her like a breeze only meant for her to feel. One that seeped under her skin and coursed through her bloodless veins.

Tears welled behind her eyes and stung the corners. Her usual impeccable ability to control her emotions stumbled. It wasn’t fair, but then again, nothing she had ever done in her life had proven to her that she did not deserve this. Even in death she couldn’t do the right thing.

Fuck, she thought again. Fuck.

She had broken her own vow, the one she had made and kept deep within herself at a time when she was very young and new to hurt. The promise to never show the pain, to never let them see her weakness. Fuck all of them, she prayed, like a mantra to her own beliefs.

But this...this defied her beliefs, forced her to question them, and it angered her. How dare he make her feel this way? She wanted to shake him and slap his face, like he once did to her as she lay on this exact table. She wanted to scream at him, _How stupid can you be?!_ She wanted to hurt him like he hurt her.

Yet through it all, through all of those feelings whose truths screamed for her attention, one screamed the loudest. She wasn’t ready, she wasn’t ready to let go. So she wouldn’t.

As if waking from a dream, the world crashed in around her. Sounds filled her ears, breaking the quiet reverie she had built around them. In the background, voices rose and fell, one in particular, with an increasing level of alarm.

Salim. He was shouting from somewhere beyond the mortuary doors. Though she could not make out his exact words, the tone of fear behind them alarmed her. She couldn’t stay here. She had to move, and she would have to do it quickly. She couldn’t risk another run in with anyone, Shadow included. And she wouldn't risk being caught in this war, one that she had never intended to be apart of.

Forcing her feet to move, she stepped close to the table and to his side. Taking one last look at his face, she set her resolve and slid her arms under his cooling body.

“Please forgive me,” she whispered.

Bracing herself, she lifted.


	2. Chapter 2

# Chapter 2

Laura Moon was changing.

No, not in the way she was ready to admit, but physically. She felt different.

She had only just begun to wrangle her newfound superhuman strength. Her body was suddenly capable of unbelievable things, from throwing grown men with a flick of her wrist to flipping over two ton trucks with ease. She could crush a man’s head with nothing more than a slight pressure from the heel of her boot, though she was still a little squeamish at that memory.

Now, merely days later, she struggled to carry Sweeney when before she could toss him like a rag doll.

He had been right… again.

She rolled her eyes. Now that was a statement that had been all too common as of late.

But... he _had_ been right. Her strength was nowhere near what it had been before.

When she dropped the car onto his foot she wanted to imagine that it was done on purpose, payback for all of the shit he had been spewing at her, and not because she was losing something. But then his eyes settled on hers with an unfamiliar gaze, one of genuine care and concern, and for a brief moment she felt the seriousness. She met his gaze with a shared intensity, searching his eyes. Did he know something she didn’t?

Frustration clouded her mind. In an instant she shut him down. The concern snapped back to hostility. _And hurt?_ She wondered. _No… no. Never._

Besides the obvious sensations that came with being a living corpse, her body felt different, and it was beginning to frighten her. It was partly this fear that propelled her to take him.

She groaned as she hefted his literal dead weight to rest squarely on her thin shoulders.

Slipping out of the funeral home unnoticed was easier than she expected, thanks to the growing commotion at the front of the house. Salim’s voice, now accompanied by what sounded like a newscast blaring from a television, drown out any noise Laura made as she awkwardly carried Sweeney out of the mortuary and into the back courtyard. Even if they had noticed her, though, she wouldn’t have known. She kept moving, and did not look back.

Laura stuck mostly to back roads as to not draw attention. She wasn’t sure how she would explain this scene to a concerned passerby, and she didn’t want to be put in a position where she would have to. Luckily for her, the remoteness of the area and the time of the evening worked in her favor, and as the warm sun sunk slowly behind the pines, Laura walked along at a steady pace without disruption.

Her feet took her a lot farther than she thought they would before the sheer weight of Sweeney, and the weakness she felt spreading through her body, caused her to slow, and eventually stop.

With the last of her energy fading, she gently lowered Sweeney to the cover of green pine needles on the side of the road. She considered sitting him up and propping him against a tree, but then she changed her mind. That might be too weird.

Laura sat heavily on the ground next to him. She felt tired, and her boy felt strange. She reached out to touch Sweeney, her hand resting on his. Already she could feel the rigidity taking hold of his fingers and spreading up his arm.

She looked around. There was nothing but forest and fading light. Despair began to rise.

“Damn it!” She yelled. Her voice came out raspy and used. She went to push the heels of her hands against her eyes, then thought better of it. She couldn’t afford to accidentally knock one of her eyeballs out.

Now she regretted staying off the main roads. They were in the middle of nowhere. Her hope of stumbling upon civilization was drifting away with the increasing density of the trees, and steady creep of the evening shadows. Crickets were beginning their nightly chorus.

She didn’t dare take the potion now, in this situation. She had no idea how her body would react to it. She needed to be somewhere safe, for the both of them.

She felt like crying, but this time, no tears pooled behind her eyes. Hours ago, when she first laid eyes on Sweeney, she had shed tears, albeit not a lot. But at least she had been able to produce them.

Her, rage, sadness, and frustration grew inside her, but her body produced none of their effects. She felt nothing.

She considered lying down next to him. She imagined laying her head right next to his, and watching his face as she closed her eyes. It felt so easy. A relief. She could just let all of this go.

Laura began to lower the rest of her body to the ground when she heard it. She paused. An engine.

She forced herself off of the ground and squinted down the road. Headlights burned in the distance, drawing closer.

Her eyes went wide. She gathered herself together, smoothing her dress and brushing the strands of hair out of her face. She had no idea what she looked like, but she hoped it wasn’t like how she felt, like death. She lifted her hand and waved. The car approached, then slowed. She started intently, willing the car forward.

The car, a beat up green pickup truck, rolled to a stop beside her. A middle aged man leaned his head out the window, cigarette dangling between his lips. He looked her up and down, and smiled.

“Now tell me, what’s a girl like you doing all alone in the woods? Got yourself in some trouble?” He took a drag of his cigarette, blowing the smoke into the sky. She forced a smile on her face and took a step forward.

“I’m so glad to see you, I need a little help. I was hoping…”

“Woah… who’s that? Is he ok?” The man trained his eyes on Sweeney lying on the ground behind Laura.

Ignoring his question, she looked harder at him and moved to the truck, leaning her hands on door. The man pulled back from her. She reached in and grabbed his arm. He tried to pull away, but she gripped harder. He winced.

“Look, I don’t want any trouble,” she said to him calmly. “I just really need your truck and I don’t want to have to hurt you.”

The man stilled and stared at her as if contemplating his choices.

There was a pause in the air between them and Laura felt for a moment that she had him, that this could be easy.

But nothing is ever easy, is it?

The man shot his other hand out of the window and at Laura’s throat. In the same instant, Laura lifted her right hand and punched the man square in the face. That was all it took. The man slumped back in the seat, eyes closed.

“Shit,” she sighed.

Laura moved quickly. She opened the door and dragged him out of the car and across the pavement to lay him on the side of the road near Sweeney. She put a finger on his neck, and breathed a sigh of relief when she felt a steady heartbeat. If she had been at full strength, she would have killed him, and she wasn’t in the best mindset to commit a random murder.

She lifted Sweeney into the cab and slid into the driver's seat next to him. For her last act of charity, she tossed the cell phone that had been perched on the dash out of the window and next to the still unconscious man.

Without another look, she stepping on the gas and followed the road out of the woods.

\-------------------------------------------

She knew she wasn’t a good person - far from it. And if this didn’t work, then she knew it was because she didn’t deserve it.

Laura had driven the truck as far as she could go, considering her cargo, in a direction that felt like it made sense to her. In the early hours of the morning, she pulled off the road into a 24 hour motel. It wasn’t the Ritz, but it would do.

Now she stood in the center of the small room, her hand gripped tightly around the small bottle, thinking of every way this could go wrong.

The potion was meant for her, but it wasn’t until this moment that she gave any serious thought to what it meant to take it. It had weighed heavily in her pocket, dragging her down, meaning to bury her.

The Baron promised a trade in truth, and the truth she did receive, though in the aftermath of said truth, she had angrily refused to accept it.

But she believed now, didn’t she? Well, she was on her way to believing, she corrected. Didn’t that count for something? Didn’t that show that at the very least, she was trying? Would that be enough?

Sweeney lay on the only bed in the room, one long arm hanging off the side. He had become so rigid she was afraid to touch him for fear of breaking him. If she was going to do this, it had to be now.

Laura took a long look at the bottle before pulling out the tiny cork. The last ingredient, the blood infused with love, had already been added. The potion had hissed and smoke curled out when she had dropped in Sweeney’s newly shed blood. The liquid’s reaction confirmed her decision.

With a last long look at Sweeney, she took a deep breath, squeezed her eyes shut and tipped the bottle to her lips, emptying it one quick gulp.

She waited, frozen, for a full minute before opening her eyes. She frowned, lifted the bottle again and stared confusedly after it. She tipped it over, checking for any last drops. Did she do something wrong? She didn’t feel any different.

And then…

A shockwave rolled through her body, reverberating from her center and branching out to her toes and to the top of her head.

“Oh,” she said, quietly, moving her hand to her stomach.

Another shock, this one stronger, pulsed through her.

“Oh!” she cried out, louder this time.

She gripped her stomach and doubled over. The bottle slipped from her hand and tumbled to the floor.

“Oh no…” She felt like she was being torn from the inside out. Her body was screaming. Pain now flowed freely through her, torching every inch of her.

She felt dizzy and fell hard to her knees. A wave of nausea pushed up her throat and she began to retch. It wasn’t maggots that exited her body this time, though. It was blood, deep red and black with clot.

She kept throwing, her small body shaking. A tiny point of burning began to move through her chest, up her throat, and finally, in one last powerful wave, onto the floor in front of her. The coin.

It glistened in the nest of blood and gore. She stared at it in shock, until her eyes began to blur and then she made a grab for it.

With the the world swirling around her and the pain reaching a breaking point, she pressed the coin hard into his hand, firmly against the center of his palm. As she felt herself falling, and the room faded to black, the coin burned bright and hot before disappearing.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading and for following along on this little adventure with this couple and my imagination :)

# Chapter 3

At first, there was only a darkness so black that it absorbed all of the light and sound, like the center of a black hole noiselessly swallowing entire galaxies.

As he gasped his last breath on the dusty floor of the mortuary, his soul had at last been set free. It curled in whisps into the air above him, released from the restraints of a ruined body he had used and abused, bones shattered in countless fights, lungs he had choked with smoke, and a liver that had managed to bend without breaking.

It is in this moment, drifting in the silent space between worlds, that his shield is removed. His soul had been bruised, broken, and roughly put back together too many times to count. It had lost most of what it had loved, so it had been hidden away and protected. Now in death it was exposed in a way that it had never been in life. He didn’t need to protect it here because it was here that it was at its safest.

The demands of the world and the people in it were long gone, and he no longer needed to play the part or worry about doing right or wrong.

It would never last though, and some part of him knew that. After all, he had been raised to believe there was something greater, and greater there would be.

The afterlife took its time to break the dark solitude surrounding him.

Sounds filled in first. A breeze whispering through blades of grass, the steady onslaught of waves crashing against sea smoothed rocks, and high flying swallows calling to each other as they whipped and wound through the clouds and wind.

The light followed, widening beams cracking the dark, enveloping him in warmth. He felt as if the sun were shining for him only, bathing him in its glow, tempting him to open his eyes and to see the glory for himself.

He obliged, and as his eyes adjusted to the brightness, he found himself in a rather familiar place. Brilliant blue sky, green expanse of sea that stretched to the horizon, cliff hugged terrain spotted with ancient craggy rocks and wild grasses. The cliffs of Northern Ireland, as he remembered them, when he was at his happiest.

The wind whipped off the rough water, carrying with it sprays of salt that sparked memories long past, but never forgotten.

Sweeney sensed he wasn’t alone and he turned to look behind him. A woman was standing a short distance away, long hair swirling in the breeze, curling around her face but through which he could see her knowing smile.

He smiled timidly and with relief. He had been expecting her. He had avoided the Welsh goddess of time, fate and death more than once, and now that she had come to collect what he owed, he was ready for her.

He strode toward her purposefully and when they met in the rocky field surrounded by high flowering grasses, she immediately took both of his hands in hers and looked intensely into his eyes. He did not shy away from her gaze, and met her thoughtful, shining eyes swirling with stars.

“I know this place,” he nervously breathed, after a moment, his eyes leaving hers and sweeping the landscape. “Is this my heaven? It feels like it is.”

She looked around as well, her eyes following his, taking in the natural beauty of their surroundings.

“Something like that,” she replied. “But you won’t be here for long. You’re never here for that long, but this time it will be particularly short.”

Sweeney didn’t quite understand, and his patience for cryptic goddess speak was short.

“You'll have to excuse me if I’m wrong, love, but I think that I remember my decision pretty well and it did have a certain element of finality. The spear, Gungnir…”. He was beginning to remember the moment that brought him here, but it was slipping and becoming harder to grasp.

“I can’t really remember it now, but I do know that it was my destiny. I owed a battle, and I honored that debt. I completed my journey, or whatever you god's call it. ''

She smiled calmly and squeezed his hands. “That moment was important to your journey, and you’re right to believe it was a part of your fate, because it is. It will impact your story going forward. But that wasn’t _your_ moment. What you did was selfless as something that had to be done, but you… _you’re_ not done. You’re going back.”

“No…” he whispered, shaking his head. He released her hands and took a step back. “I didn’t do it to be selfless. I did it for me! To complete my journey, to repay _my_ debts!”.

“See?” she asked, pointing to a spot in the center of his chest.

Deep red blood stained the middle of his shirt, right at the point where the spear went up and through. He frowned down at it and looked back up to her. The fire inside him fueling his demands was beginning to fizzle.

“Your body has not healed because it is still part of the world from which you came. There is more of that story left to tell.”

It couldn’t be. The battle he was promised… No. He couldn’t go back. He wouldn’t. Where he had been, he wasn’t wanted there anymore. He didn’t have anything more to give to that world.

I’m not doing it,” he said, shaking his head.

The goddess continued, ignoring his stubbornness. “You made a decision that felt right because you were fated to do it. However your partner, she has been fated with bringing you back. She may not know the deeper meaning but the seeds of this destiny have been planted, and she is beginning to see the right path.”

“My partner? There is no way that Laura _bloody_ Moon is my partner”. But even as he said it, he knew it was true.

“You are the other side of each other’s coin. Twin souls.” She watched the realization wash across his face, taking his sarcastic smirk with it. “No matter who you are, or where you are, you will always find one another. And whether you choose to spend a lifetime together, or simply share a glance across a busy street, is up to you. When and if one journey ends before the other, here is where you will wait for the other to restart.”

He hadn’t needed the goddess to tell him what he already knew. He had seen it in Laura’s face when she didn’t think he was looking and in the playful quirk of her lip between the insults of their cruel banter. He saw it in both the shock and awe on her face as they rose and fell with each other, and in her cool dismissiveness the following day. He had recognized it because he also saw it within himself, and like Laura he had avoided it. He knew Laura would rather die before admitting this weakness, he wasn’t so far off from that sentiment either.

He also knew that if they kept running from fate, then they would never stop running. Their history has proven that time and again.

She was Laura McCabe Moon, but she had also been Essie and Euron and many more. Those whose names were lost to him but whose memories lapped at the very edge of his mind. Versions of herself so far from this time that though the faces blurred, the soul behind those hazel eyes burned bright, calling him home.

No wonder they were nearly always at each other’s throats, he thought, a bitter smile tugging at his lips. When you spend a thousand, or more, lifetimes together, you’re bound to get on each other’s nerves.

But Laura was fucking impossible. She would never admit what she knew, that they were descendants from the same lush world who traveled the same path lifetime after lifetime, having been singled out by the gods as soulmates, a fate you could never change even if you tried. He could try to convince her when he returned, then they could skip a lot of the bullshit.

“You can’t,” the goddess answered. He stared at her in confusion.

“You can’t convince her. You’ll have a hard enough time convincing yourself. You’ll never remember this,” she said, gesturing to the world around them. “It might come to you fleetingly, like in a dream, or a memory stuck at the back of your mind, and at the most only in broken pieces that are difficult to put together. Fate has put you together, now it’s time to figure the rest out by yourselves”.

Sweeney scoffed at that. “You fucking gods and your games. Ya can't every stop can ya?”

The goddess smiled slyly and as she turned to go, she quipped, “Now what would be the fun in that?”

“Oh fuck off...”

Sweeney woke with a start, lurching forward and clutching the bedspread with his fists so hard that his hands hurt. He released his grip on the bed and rubbed his face and his head.

He knew he had been dreaming, but it was quickly fading. The sounds and smells had pulled back behind the curtain of sleep, and within a few seconds he could barely remember what it had been about. He remembered the feeling though and he remembered…

His eyes went wide and he frantically lifted a hand to touch his chest. He winced in pain.

Hastily, he pulled at his blood stained shirt, lifting it to reveal a neat line of clean sutures stretching from his sternum down his abdomen. He traced it with his fingertips, his mind racing to find the information he couldn’t quite grasp. He lifted one hand, and stared at it in wonder, flexing and stretching it. He lifted the other to do the same, and his eye caught something unusual.

Burned into the center of his right hand was a circle. Not a clean circle. This one had ragged, imperfect edges, and in the center, the faint image of a sun with its life giving beams bursting forth.

A storm began to brew inside of him. He closed his eyes, making a weak attempt to calm himself, but feeling more satisfaction in embracing the rage.

“Fuck,” he growled, massaging his forehead roughly.

Should have _fucking_ known, he thought indignantly.

Then another urgent thought. If he had the coin, then that meant…

Lifting his eyes to his surroundings, he scanned the room. Except for a few simple pieces of furniture, the room was bare of any personal effects. The curtains were drawn but thin enough to allow the dim light of the cloudy sky to penetrate the space.

He leaned forward and made to get up, but was stopped short. She was there, crumpled in a heap on the floor next to the bed. She lay motionless and in a pool of what appeared to be her own blood.

Shakily he lowered himself off of the bed to crouch next to her. Then his eye caught a glint. The potion.

Sweeney picked it up and shook it. Empty.

For what would now be the third time in his recent past, he found himself leaning over her body, contemplating his next move. How was it that each time she was at her most vulnerable, he was right there, deciding her fate?

Blood and gore covered her and soaked into the surrounding carpet. Her body lay at a too still, awkward angle and her long hair covered her face from his view. He found that he was afraid to move it, afraid to look at her face, because despite how he felt about her bringing him back, the fear that the potion didn’t work was beginning to outweigh that.

“Christ, just fucking do it,” he muttered to himself.

He cautiously moved his hand to her hair and brushed it back. He eyes were closed as if she were just sleeping. And something about her face was different. The look of death that he had been so used to seeing on her was fading, replaced by warm, peach skin and rose colored cheeks.

He lifted a finger under her nose to feel for her breath, holding his own in the process. Every few seconds, his skin warmed.

She was weak, but she was alive.

Sitting back on his heels, he staring at her in wide eyed disbelief. She was alive. She looked fucking terrible, but she was alive.

She had to get off the floor and out of the mess of her resurrection, and as he stood he gently lifted Laura with him. Her body was limp in his arms. Her head tipped back, revealing a trail of angry blue and purple bruises along her trachea that disappeared into the neckline of her dress.

He lay her on the bed in the spot he had just occupied, and retrieved a wet face cloth from the bathroom. He gently cleaned the blood off of her face and her neck, careful not to press on the bruises.

Now that he could clearly see her face, he found himself staring - at the color as it rose in her cheeks, at the slight part in her pink lips, and the way her chest rose and fell as new life filled her lungs.

He had only known her in death, and at best, death warmed over. He really had never had the chance to see this version of her. A version that was full of life, and finally able to close her eyes and rest. He found himself thinking about how tired she must be.

He didn’t know if he would ever be able to get this close to her again without her punching him in the face for it. He needed to feel it though, just to be sure it was there. The thing that was pumping life to every corner of her body, and that she had chased Shadow halfway across the country for. The thing that she most desired to feel move within herself again. Her heartbeat.

Tentatively he placed his hand on her warm chest, directly where her heart should be. Sure enough it was there, leaping against his touch, filling his palm.

There was a stirring in his chest, and his own heart leapt as if calling to hers.

Startled, he pulled his hand back and reeled from the bed. He placed his hand over his own chest, moving up to the veins running along his neck. He felt nothing. He realized that up until this moment, he hadn’t felt his own heart move, or breath fill his lungs.

The coin. It had done what it was supposed to do. It had brought him back, but not given him life.

So why then had his heart beat?

“No,” he whispered aloud. “No no no no”.

Just a coincidence, he reasoned, his mind racing, his hands running nervously through his hair. Just a coincidence.

_Fuck_

“Fuck!” He shouted, kicking a trash bucket and sending it loudly clattering across the floor.

He didn’t ask for this, or for her. He was meant to be done. He made the decision to have his battle, he took the risk to die and she hadn’t respected that. No one ever listens to him, her most of all. He should have known.

“I was fucking done!” He cried with a surge, then weakly and quietly, as if he had given in, “I was supposed to be done”.

“Sweeney?”

He spun around. Their eyes met. Laura Moon was awake.


	4. Chapter 4

# Chapter 4

The Edgewood Motel sat on the outskirts of Nashville, Tennessee. It was far enough from the city for its patrons to take refuge in the peacefulness of the rolling hills, but close enough for them to partake in its revelries whenever the spirit chose to take hold.

Inside room number ten, which was situated at the end of the long row of rooms that made up the weathered motel, Laura Moon was roused from a deep and dreamless sleep. In the period of wakefulness before she opened her eyes, she was drifting in a state of blessed forgetfulness. She felt warm, she felt safe, she had no worries.

In an instant, her mind alerted. Wait, she thought, warm?

A loud crash split the quiet.

“Fuck!”

That voice. She bolted upright, sending her head into a spin and vomit rising in her throat. She swallowed it back down.

“Sweeney?”

He spun around to face her. Both were wide eyed and rendered speechless, full of shock and relief at the wonder before them, at a person they never thought they would see alive again.

If they had been anyone else in a moment such as this, they would have closed the space between them in an instant, become swept up in each other’s arms, kisses peppering one another’s faces, whispering words of love and commitment and passion into the other’s ear.

But they weren’t anyone else, and as a shadow replaced the shininess in his eye, she wasn’t sure they would ever be. Butterflies filled her stomach and her heart surged in her chest. She gasped and clasped a hand over it. It pulsed steadily.

She looked back at him, realization filling her face. “I’m alive,” she stammered, giving him a small hesitant smile, “You’re alive.”

“That you are,” he said, indifferently, as it had been rehearsed, his voice high and unnatural. “That _I_ am. What a fucking miracle, aye?”

The smile fell from her face. She swallowed hard and stared back, trying to maintain her composure and mask her hurt.

“How…” She struggled to find the words. Then as if her mind helped her to answer the question, she remembered. It flashed in front of her eyes like a movie in fast forward. The potion, the pain and the blood. The coin.

“You know fucking how, don’t act like you don’t remember.” His eyes left hers and he nodded to a spot on the floor. “It was just like I said it would be , the great Baron’s potion followed by a gory resurrection all over this hotel room floor.”

She peered over the edge of the bed. “Oh, gross.”

“And how did I end up here, eh?” He asked, ignoring her revulsion. “Last I remember, I made a decision to have my battle whatever the consequences may be. I took _my_ life into _my_ hands and I wake up here, with this!” He gestured wildly to her and the rest of the room.

”And imagine my surprise, as I am investigating my sudden return to this hellhole, at seeing this.” He lifted his palm to her face. She squinted at the small, rough circle burnt into his palm. “Care to explain?”

When she didn’t respond, he dropped his hand and scoffed bitterly. “I should have known you wouldn’t have let me go. You’re too fucking selfish, dead wife.”

He turned from her and walked to the window, drawing back the curtain to gaze out at the parking lot. The motel appeared to be mostly empty with just a couple of cars sitting in the lot. Dark clouds were building behind the tall trees.

Laura watched him apprehensively as she slid her legs off the edge of the bed and pushed herself up. She felt weak and unsteady, and her head was still spinning, but she forced herself to stand.

“I…”

“Well?!” He spun around to face her.

She paused, mouth agape. All the things she wanted, needed to say were right there on the tip of her tongue. _I was afraid and I didn’t want to be alone. I couldn’t do this on my own and I needed you. I finally realized the truth and I’m sorry it took me so long, but I’m here now and…_

But she bit hard on her tongue. He was looking at her blankly, without a care for her or what she had to say, like he had forced everything that had happened between far away, and because of that her incessant need to protect herself expanded in her chest, covering her like a shield. She hardened her resolve.

“It… It didn’t feel right,” she responded cooly. “It didn’t feel like it was your time, that it had been an accident that shouldn’t have happened. I took you from the mortuary, from Cairo, and I brought you here. I brought you back. I owed you a coin, after all, didn’t I?”

“You don’t get to play God!”

“Oh, but you do?” She gave him a pointed look, crossing her arms defensively over her chest. Confusion settled on his face.

“Oh, don’t think I don’t know,” she said, taking a step closer to him. “You don’t think I felt that coin pushed back into my chest, huh? You wouldn’t call that ‘playing God’?”

“That was different,” he stuttered, grasping for a defense.

She took another step closer so that she was right beneath him, challenging him.

“That was fucking different,” he persisted, shaking off her glare. “It wasn’t your place, Laura!”

A knot formed tight in her chest. _Laura_.

“You said my name.”

“What?”

“You never say my name.”

“I didn’t say it.”

“Yes you did. You literally just did. I heard it.”

“No I fucking didn’t!” He bellowed.

But he had, and she had heard it, and it hadn’t been the first time, but she doubted he remember that. And just like that last time, the way it sounded as it curled around his tongue and passed through his lips was like hearing her own name for the very first time. It rolled out melodically, blended with his thick, rough accent and tinged with that same frustrated tone he saved only for her.

“And whether I said it or not it does not _fucking_ matter, its the the point remains the same. You had no right to bring me back. I was done with this shit, I took my fate back into my own hands. You disrespected that. But what else is fucking new, it’s the story of your goddamn life.”

“Excuse me?” she asked shrilly.

“Oh, you heard me. You’re so fucking bent on getting your own way that you completely disregard what anyone else wants, and least of all what’s right there in front of you. You did it with your shit for brains husband who couldn’t have spelled it out more clearly for you. He wanted nothing to fucking do with you and yet you still haunted him, begged him for it. Pathetic.”

She clenched her teeth. He was trying to hurt her like she had hurt him, and she knew it because she would have done the exact same thing.

“Do you even know what you did? Where I was? You tore me out of heaven!”

A shock pulsed through her at his admission. His eyes bored into hers with so much intensity and hurt that there was too much to take, so she forced them away. She looked at the ground and took a step back.

“I didn’t know,” she stammered.

“You didn’t know,” he laughed sarcastically.

Angry tears, outside of his control, stung the corners of his eyes. He turned from her and shook his head violently to wipe them away. He didn’t dare move a hand to do the job, nor give her the satisfaction of knowing his grief.

“And do you want to know what it was like, huh? I was standing there at heaven’s golden gate, my debt repaid, and just as I step my foot over the threshold, I wake up here in this shit hole, once again picking up your gory bits off the floor.”

“You think I don’t remember what it was like!?” She screamed back.

“Fucking why then? If you knew what it was like to have that blessed eternal rest at your fingertips only to have ripped away, then tell me, why? Because God knows you tried to off yourself for it.”

Laura flinched. That one had stung her, and because of it, she couldn’t bring herself to answer. Sweeney wouldn’t wait either way. He stormed to her in three large steps and grabbed her upper arms tightly, painfully, and pushed her against the wall. She gasped in pain, her eyes squeezed shut.

“Answer me!”

“Don’t,” she squeaked out, refusing to meet his eye.

“Answer me, dead wife!”

“I didn’t know,” she repeated dully. Her self control was waning. 

“You don’t need me anymore. You got what you wanted. You have your life back, you have Shadow...”

At the mention of Shadow’s name, Laura clenched her jaw. She’d had enough.

She raised her eyes and glared at him. Placing her hands on his shoulders, she pushed as hard she could.

Sweeney flew back from Laura, landing with a crash against the opposite wall. Laura slid to the floor and pulled her knees to her chest.

The strength, it was still there. She looked at her hands in awe.

Leaning back against the wall, Sweeney groaned in pain. For a moment, they just looked at each other, passing a shared pain between them.

Finally, Sweeney broke the silence.

“What more do you want from me?” he asked, his voice much smaller than it had been minutes before. His eyes pleaded with her to release him from his suffering. All she had to do was tell him.

A war between right and wrong, love and bitterness raged within Laura. With a simple phrase she could make all of this go away. She could ease his suffering and his pain, and over time she could heal his hurt and his heart. She held his soul in the palm of her hand, and he knew that, and it scared him. And as much as she wanted to be the person to show him that it was ok, she just wasn’t there yet, because she was scared too.

“Nothing,” she bit out, fists gripping the carpet. She couldn’t bare to look at him, so she didn’t. "You have your coin back, you don't need to be with me anymore."

The small room between them suddenly seemed very large and the hope of crossing it to one another faded with each lie that passed, or didn’t pass, their lips.

They were hiding something from the other that would end this war. But true to form, neither of them would give it up. Would it always be like this? she thought sadly.

“Thank you,” he whispered.

From the bottom of a dark tunnel that she had created for herself, she heard Sweeney pull himself from the floor and shuffle to the door, slamming it on his way out.

It shook the thin walls and rattled an old yellowed lamp on the bureau. It fell loudly to the floor next to Laura. She lifted it and hurled it against the wall.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading and for the lovely comments! I am glad you are enjoying this :)

# Chapter 5

For a long time after Sweeney left, Laura didn’t move. She lay as still as she possibly could in the same spot on the carpet by the wall, watching but unseeing the setting sun drift in long lines across the motel room floor.

There had been a moment in her life when she had been in this exact position. She often chose to never speak of it, let alone think about it because it made her feel scared and vulnerable and she hated that. But she couldn’t shake the familiarity and as the long claws of memory reached out, she found herself remembering.

It happened after she had tested herself, pushing herself beyond her limits in an attempt to shock her long suffering spirit into being. The voracious need to feel had not just been a symptom of her death, but one she had fed well and often in life. When it had started she didn’t know, but there is something to be said about the endless years of monotony coupled with deep seeded insecurities and an idle mind that led her to a sealed hot tub and a full can of bug spray.

Afterwards, she dragged herself choking and gasping from the steaming water, slithering like an eel over the edge and crashing onto the cool patio bricks. Her body shook with long, hard convulsions before she finally lay motionless, eyes glazed and faraway like she was at the bottom of a very deep abyss looking up to a dying point of light in the unreachable distance.

She lay there at the bottom for what felt like an eternity, giving herself completely to its darkness and peace, until a relentless crying that began far away but grew closer and louder pulled her steadily from the depths, and as she emerged her eyes came into focus on her cat, pawing wildly at the sliding glass door. They made eye contact and it stopped and glared at her pointedly, silently making it known that what she had done was wildly idiotic, that she was still very much alive and she needed to get the fuck up.

No one, not even Shadow, understood her relationship with the cat after that, and she would never feel the same after she lost its lifeline.

But here there was no cat to pull her from the depths, and she instead chose to give in, to sink into the comfort and quiet of it.

“What’s the fucking point,” she murmured to herself, and she closed her eyes and drifted into another deep and dreamless sleep.

_So you’re just gonna lie there then?_

Sweeney. Her eyes snapped open and frantically scanned the room.

The sun had set and the room, empty and unchanged, was dark save for a dim like emanating from outside. He had not returned.

A new ache flared in her chest, but his words, still echoing in her ears, lit a small flame within her and she was drawn to that flame like a moth made frantic by light.

”Fuck you,” she said aloud. He wasn’t allowed to make her feel this way, and using her newfound to roll onto her stomach and push up off the floor.

Her body was still heavy and unfamiliar, and she held the wall as she shuffled slowly to the bathroom.

Reaching behind the shower curtain, she turned on the water, twisting the faucet as far as it would go, then sat on the edge of the tub as steam rose and swirled around her.

Complimentary shower bottles were arranged neatly next to where she sat and she absently touched them, picking up the small shampoo. She realized that she couldn’t remember the last time she had washed her hair, let alone taken a shower. It had to have been right after she returned and before Sweeney had warned her of the effects of warm water on a decomposing body. One of her sad attempts to win back Shadow, she thought with a sigh.

She placed the bottle down and stood hesitantly in front of the mirror. The last time she had looked at herself felt like weeks, when she was at the peak of her death spiral and her body was barely held together by sutures that had sewn it shut.

So when she swiped her hand across it to clear the steam she wasn’t entirely prepared for what looked back at her, and she spent several long minutes just staring.

Her hair was stringy and caked with blood, but she barely noticed because her face...her face was her own again. If she hadn’t been so emotionally drained she would have cried at the sight, but every ounce of her energy had been spent over the past twenty-four hours and she had nothing left to give.

Gone were the sunken clouded eyes that she hid away with dark sunglasses. Her own clear eyes now stared back at her, restored to their bright hazel and rimmed with long full lashes. The warm peach and rosy hue of her skin replaced the sallow yellow and her lips were full and pink.

She leaned in closer to the mirror, remembering herself, delicately running her hand over her nose and lips and chin. She pinched her cheeks and watched as her own red blood gathered at the surface and spread into a blush.

Her eyes flicked downward. She winced as she delicately touched the deep blue and purple bruises that peppered her neck and chest, but beneath them her skin was full of life and smooth as if it had never been carved.

Hurriedly, she pulled her ruined dress over her head. It fell from her hand and pooled to the ground at her feet, exposing a body she barely recognized. She inwardly gasped.

The marks on her neck were spread over her torso and down her thighs and her body underneath showed signs of the toll that the tiresome cycle of death and rebirth had taken on her.

Running her hand up her side she could feel each rib poking through her skin. She had always been thin, but never like this. Her stomach was nearly concave and her legs and arms were skeletal. She crossed her arms over her chest and looked away. She didn’t want to see anymore.

Once in the shower, she stayed under the spray of scalding water longer than she should have, reveling in its healing power, letting it burn her skin and seep into her sore muscles. It had been so long since she had felt warm that it intoxicated her. She stared at her feet, distractedly watching the hazy blood and dirt washed off her body and flow down the drain in long crimson strings. She picked up the soap and got to work.

When she finally emerged, she was flushed pink from head to toe and scrubbed clean.

Using the same steaming water, she cleaned her dress as best as she could and hung it up to dry. The red stains of blood and whatever else had exited her body were still visible and would likely never come out, but it was all she had, so it would have to do for now.

A scratchy white bathrobe hung in the closet and deciding it was clean enough, and that she was desperate enough, she pulled it on and cinched it tight around her waist.

Utterly spent, she lay on the bed and faced the door. Exhaustion hummed through every nerve, eventually consuming her, and as she stared blankly into the dark space between the curtains, her eyes drifted closed.

It was many hours later that she heard it through a fitful sleep. A soft knock.

Laura, bleary eyed and sore, turned her head to the clock on the bedside table. The dull orange glow showed that it was nearly 1:00AM. Soft thunder rolled in the distance indicating that the storm that had threatened earlier that day had arrived.

Another knock, slightly louder this time, sounded from the door. Laura clicked on the wall light next to her, allowing her just enough light to see around the room. She shifted and achingly pulled herself from the bed, stiffly standing to her feet. Her body was going to take some getting used to.

Thunder, louder this time, rumbled through the walls and shook the window’s thin pane of glass.

Pausing at the door, she pulled the bathrobe tight across her chest and ran her fingers through her knotted hair.

She placed her hand flat on the door. Instinct told her it was him on the other side, but she earnestly fought the urge to swing the door open and welcome him openly because things felt complicated and messy… she felt complicated and messy.

Exposure was her kryptonite. An aversion to really being seen for who she was at her core stirred up memories of their past, the disdain in his eyes as he walked out the door and the weakness in her response helped build the walls that would protect her. She forced her emotions far below, set her face to match, and opened the door.

Sweeney leaned heavily against the door frame, his forehead resting on his forearm, his eyes closed. He swayed slightly, and she knew instantly that he was drunk. His other hand hung loosely by his side. Even in the darkness, she noticed the redness that bloomed across his knuckles, split with scratches and scraps and flecked with drying blood.

Large droplets of rain dripped from his hair and ran down his face, mingling with blood that trickled from a wound that split the top of his cheek.

Her heart fluttered, cracking her steely composure ever so slightly.

But despite his vulnerable state, and despite how much her heart surged desperately to reach out and hold him, her stubbornness prevailed. She remembered his words to her and how they sent her back to the abyss and once again set her resolve, albeit slightly weaker this time.

She opened her mouth to speak, to say something sarcastic and mean that would hurt him and protect her, but she stopped when she heard his voice, barely above a whisper.

“I haven’t anywhere to go.”

Laura shut her mouth and swallowed hard. Sweeney rolled his forehead back and forth along his arm, his eyes remaining shut. His voice, even lower this time and thick from overuse, repeated, “I don’t know where else to go. Can I please come in?”

She closed her eyes and bit down hard on the inside of her cheek in an effort to suppress the sudden and uninvited wave of emotion.

Fuck, she thought.

She knew this feeling well. She knew what it felt like to cross through the veil only to be abruptly dragged back. She knew how it felt to search for something, anything, that will make you feel alive again.

She was responsible for this, but she also knew that she could fix it, if he allowed. If she allowed herself.

Opening her eyes again revealed they had softened. She reached for his hand and pulled him into the room.

He followed without resisting, stumbling after her as the door behind him clicked quietly into the lock.

Laura felt his grip on her hand tightening as if she were a lifeline to his safety and stability. He moved his thumb to run roughly along the length of her finger. A knot formed in her stomach and hastily she withdrew her hand.

Releasing a shaky breath, she spun around to face him. He watched her curiously. She nervously smoothed her hands on the robe and flashed an awkward smile.

“Sorry”, she whispered.

Rain was falling heavily now. It drummed loudly on the cars in the parking lot setting off a cacophony of sounds barely muffled by the thin walls of the motel. A welcome disruption in the all too quiet room.

Laura stood on her tiptoes to slide his sodden jacket over his cold, bare shoulders and down his arms, and turned to drape it neatly over a chair. When she looked back, he was swaying slightly and shivering. Whether it was from the cool air loudly pumping from the ancient air conditioner or from the shock of his trauma she wasn’t sure, but whatever it was stirred in her a need to go to him, to warm and comfort him.

She helped him sit on the edge of the bed, and she lowered herself to kneel at his feet. He watched her closely, tired eyes half closed though never leaving her face. With some effort, she pulled each of his boots off, followed by his socks, and moved them to the side.

As Laura made to stand, she felt a slight pressure on her shoulders and she stilled, her breath catching in her throat. Sweeney’s hand languidly moved to her hair, gingerly fingering a damp strand.

He had caught her. Instinct, like the wings of a small bird beating against her chest, told her to retreat. To roughly push his hand away, turn from that room, and never look back.

But another part of her, a stronger part that had crept in somewhere between pulling him through the motel door and kneeling like a worshiper at his feet, buried that instinct, and the decades old walls she had built for situations just like this came down just as quickly and purposefully as they had been put up. Apprehensively she looked up.

He was watching her closely, a shadow of a question peering out from behind a mask of exhaustion and booze. Though it was a new side of him, a hint of a layer she had yet to explore, at the same time it became strangely familiar, and it launched her back to a moment that felt like ages ago when in reality it had been merely days.

It had been a moment when she had taken charge and he had let her because he was awestruck and helpless and suddenly forgot how to do it. She had pulled him closer than he had ever allowed himself to imagine, and he had buried his head in the curve of her neck to press his lips to the spot just under her ear that sent them both careening over the edge. Deliriously he whispered against her skin the name that he had promised himself he would never say, over and over like a prayer, and it coiled her insides so tight she thought she might explode.

And when they landed they shared that same look, one that had made what had happened between them more than just sex at the hands of two mischievous gods. It had been enough to make them both terrified of it and of each other the next morning. Enough to push her to cruelly walk away and for him to sacrifice his life.

She blamed herself more than she let on. Tears unexpectedly gathered behind her eyes revealing a truth she had yet to speak aloud and had barely acknowledged in her head, and she was too tired to bother with hiding them.

Noticing the shift he moved his hand to hold the back of her neck, bringing his head down to rest his forehead against hers. Her eyes closed and she released a deep shuddering sigh of surrender. She set her hands on his knees and held hard as he ran his hand up her neck to grip the back of her head, threading his fingers in her hair, pulling her closer to him. She could feel his breath laced heavily with whiskey on her face, mingling with her own.

“I…” he murmured, his lips moving feather light against her forehead.

She tilted her head up, allowing his lips to brush whispers across her closed eyes, her cheeks and down her nose.

Her new heartbeat surprised her, skipping a hard beat and speeding up with anticipation, and she was catapulted back to reality. This couldn’t happen like this, not when he could barely keep his eyes open and probably wouldn’t remember it the next day. She didn’t want to feel that hurt again.

She knew somewhere within her that what could happen between them would be too important, so reason won out.

“Stop,” she said quietly, reaching up to hold his wrist and gently pulled it from her hair.

He flexed his hand and settled it on the bed next to him. The alcohol came rushing back in and he dropped his head.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled.

Laura shakily stood. “It’s ok. Just lie down,” she instructed gently.

He followed her orders without argument and as soon as his head hit the pillow his breathing evened with sleep.

She held her breath until she knew he was out, and it was then that she let it all go.

Hot tears slipped from her eyes and down her cheeks. She staggered backwards to sit on the worn couch and hung her head to rest in the palms of her hands. She sobbed silently so she wouldn’t wake him, letting the crush of emotions that were surging inside to break and consumer her.

She felt relief at the release.

\---------------------------------------------

As the first birds of dawn began their melodious morning calls, Laura crawled carefully up the bed and lay down soundlessly next to Sweeney. . . He had not woken up since he had first laid his head, and Laura doubted her weight on the bed would stir him, but she remained still regardless.

It was in the moments after she had allowed herself to finally let go, to liberate the waves of tears that death and stubbornness had suppressed for so long, that she finally felt the first glimmer deep inside her.

She had been alive without actually living for a long time before this, and would have quickly scoffed at the idea of feeling something such as this stirring within her.

But that was before. And now… now there was definitely something. Life, she understood, was taking its first tentative steps back into her soul, and this time she was going to welcome it.

She let the peace envelop her, and closed her eyes as the glow of the new day burned low on the horizon.


	6. Chapter 6

# Chapter 6

Mornings are typically rough for him.

He’s used to waking up hungover, especially after all night benders. Even more so when those benders end in knockout, drag out, bar clearing brawls. But he’s made himself used to it over the years because it’s a lifestyle he’s reluctant to give up. It’s a lifestyle that helps him forget.

So when he wakes and his brain doesn’t feel like an iron hammer is relentlessly pounding on it and his body isn’t aching with the anger of fresh welts and gashes, he knows full well that somethings not right.

A soft murmur curled into his ear and a hand reached out, settling loosely on his shoulder. He froze. Slowly turning his head, he came face to face with a living, breathing Laura Moon, cheeks flushed, lips slightly parted, long strands of shiny hair spread all around her like a halo. And everything came crashing back in.

He remembered. Most of it at least. His unpleasant return and their fight. Raging to the shitty bar down the road, drinking way to much, even by his standards, and not for the taste but for the effect. And when that didn’t succeed in blocking out the dangerous thoughts that swirled through his mind, he remembered breaking a chair over the back of the biggest guy in the bar. That’s where things started to get a little hazy.

Fucking hell.

He pressed his palm to his forehead, then moved to touch the veins in his neck, and paused. After a moment he dropped his hand and sighed.

“Still fucking dead,” he grumbled.

Sweeney turned to her again, their faces inches apart.

He wanted to be mad. He remembered how fucking mad he was the night before, and a new blaze pulsed within him. She didn’t have a right to take his death away, and he clung to that idea because the way he died had been the first decision he had made for himself in a long, long time. And whether she realized it or not, she had proven to him that he was still powerless over his own life.

But even though the anger was fueled by that painful realization, it was so hard to sustain. Not when her hand held onto his shoulder and her face was so close that he could count the freckles spotting her skin, so soft and alive. She was peaceful in a way he had never seen before. In a way she had never allowed him to see. And that had to mean something.

And while there was a part of him that was still furious with her for bringing him back, another part, one that was growing larger by the minute, was so grateful to be with her once again.

She must be exhausted, he thought. He couldn’t remember her ever closing her eyes to sleep, let alone rest, since they had been together. So he chose to let her sleep, not fully knowing when her next opportunity to do so would be.

Gently uncurling her small hand from his shoulder, he slid soundlessly off of the bed. She stirred and rolled over to face away from him. He heard her soft snores resume.

He sighed and looked around the room, deciding what to do next. It looked a little like a bomb hit it, shards of glass and bits of wall, and blood, a lot of blood soaked into the carpet. Turning to the bathroom, his eyes caught movement and he went to it, finding her damp dress swinging slightly in the streaming air from the vent.

The blood stains were faded but visible and traces of mud and dirt still clung to the hem. What she had been through after he had passed he didn’t know, but he could imagine what it took for her to get him here.

His hand moved to his own shirt, touching the deep red blood that lingered and the slash where the spear had gone through. If they were going to continue on this eternal road trip they were going to need to shake the recently deceased look.

With one finally look back at her as he opened the door, Sweeney stepped into the heat of the early morning.

\----------------------------------------------------------------

When he returned sometime later, Laura was awake and staring daggers at him, but he managed to catch the slightest sigh of relief release from her chest before she crossed her arms over it.

“Hey…” He said hesitantly, closing the door behind him.

“Where the fuck were you?” she cried, voice high. “You can’t keep disappearing like this!”

_Shit._ He hadn’t thought of what it might feel like for her when she woke up and he wasn’t there.

“I’m sorry. I wasn’t far.”

“It’s fine,” she said quickly, bringing her hands to her lap and turning her eyes to the floor. “It’s not a big deal. Just… can you not do that anymore?”

“I won’t,” he promised, though his lifetime of experience with women had taught him that ‘it’s fine’ did not mean it was actually fine.

“Ok,” she said, refusing to meet his gaze. He watched her chew nervously on her bottom lip.

They lingered in silence for a moment. He noticed that she had put her dress back on, and he remembered the bag hanging from his hand.

“Take that off,” he said suddenly, taking a step towards her.

“Excuse me?” She snapped, eyes flashing.

“No… Christ, no, I don’t mean like that. I mean, I got you something else to wear, so you don’t have to walk around in that blood stained thing.”

“Oh…”

He passed her the bag, and she pulled out a light summer dress, slightly similar to the one she was wearing, and a leather jacket. She looked back at him.

“I thought you might like it because it's got some flowers on it, and you look nice in that color.” She raised an eyebrow at him, her lips quirking just a fraction. He looked away.

“And the jacket?”

“Is not real leather, don’t get too excited. Gold coins don’t get you much anymore, it’s a fucking tragedy.”

“Thanks,” she said softly. “I guess your coin is the only one with any real value after all.”

“Ya… speaking of my coin,” he started. She looked at him expectantly.

“It uh…” He rubbed the back of neck roughly. “It brought me back, but didn’t actually bring me back.”

Laura’s forehead creased in confusion.

“I’m technically not alive,” he continued. “Kinda like you were.”

“But… How? You were breathing. And you were drunk last night and you…” He watched the blush creep across her face.

He cleared his throat. “I don’t really remember the end of last night.”

“You don’t remember last night?”

His eyes went wide, but he checked himself. He knew he had to be very careful with his words. “Uh... not exactly? I remember what happened before I left, and I remember the bar, but everything after that is on the hazy side.”

“Ok.” She nodded and he could feel the relief coming off of her in waves.

“Did something happen?” he asked reluctantly.

”No,” she answered flatly.

“Look, I’m sorry…” he said, taking a deep breath.

“Don’t… We don’t need to do that right now. Besides, I think we’ve done enough damage in this room as it is.” She nodded her head towards the pieces of glass where the broken lamp lay. Above it, the wall was cracked and dented from where his body hit.

”That’s right,” he said. “You still have your power. How convenient for me.” 

She flashed him a real smile for the first time. “Ya, lucky me. So, how come you can breath and sleep and get drunk if you’re dead-not-dead?”

He shrugged. “The breathing, that’s force of habit I suppose. The sleeping and drinking I’m not sure about, but maybe it’s because I’ve got a little magic in me, and the coin recognizes that.”

“Well that doesn’t seem very fair,” Laura pouted, throwing her hands up. “I was practically drinking paint thinner and…nothing.”

The air settled between them. After a moment, Laura stood and walked towards the bathroom, taking the dress with her.

“I don’t know why you really brought me back,” he said suddenly, taking a step towards her.

She paused and turned to him, meeting his unwavering his gaze. “And... I’m also not sure how I feel about being back. It’s, uh, complicated.”

He heard her suck in a breath. She bit her lip and looked at the floor. He stepped closer so he wouldn’t lose, but also knowing he had to get it out.

“And… I don’t know where _we_ stand,” he said quietly, trying to catch her eye.

“But I have an idea, if you’re up for it. If I remember correctly, when we parted in New Orleans…” he hesitated for a moment before continuing, “You had a plan. I know I said I didn’t want to help you before, but things have changed. And I’m no good to you if I’m dead.”

He stared at her, willing her to look at him.

“Well I didn’t bring you back just so I could listen to you bitch about being dead,” she said, raising her eyes to look into his. “And my plan is still a plan, so… I’m in if you’re in.”

He nodded. “I’m in.”

”Thank you.” She smiled slightly and turned to the bathroom. “I’ll get dressed then… and we’ll go.”

A few minutes later, Laura appeared. She was wearing the dress he had gotten her, and the new life running through her glowed in the daylight. He forced his eyes away so he wouldn’t stare. 

You did good, Dead Wife,” he said, nodding towards the truck. He threw his cigarette to the ground and crushed it with the toe of his boot.

He smirked and leaned back against the truck parked in front of the room.

“How’d you know that was mine?”

”Well, aside from being one of the only cars in the lot, you were always begging me to steal a better car. Throw me in the back, did ya?”

She rolled her eyes. ”Actually, you got a seat in the cab. Is that surprising?” 

”A little,” he mused. “How’d you manage it?”

“I have my ways,” she teased. “And shouldn’t you drop the whole Dead Wife thing seeing as I’m not dead anymore?”

He pulled another cigarette from behind his ear and lit up. “Old habits die hard, and people can be dead in different ways, you should know that better than anyone.”

She didn’t respond, letting his comment hang in the air between them. She was looking at him hard, and he knew something was ruminating in her mind. But she turned and walked to the other side of the truck.

“You can drive,” she said, tossing him the keys. “You’re lucky again.”

She opened the passenger side door and climbed in.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------

They spent most of the car ride in a reasonably comfortable silence.

Every so often, when she was distracted or staring absently out the window at some point on the horizon, he stole a glance at her . He sometimes saw her mouth move ever so slightly, as if the internal dialogue in her head was so great it manifested into words pressed upon her lips.

He wondered if she could still see the light emanating from Shadow, and if she still followed him with her eyes. He kept expecting her to ask him to follow it, like she did so many times before. So he wanted to know where they stood with each other. She had been in Cairo and they would have seen each other and spoken. Something had happened between them during the brief time he was not of this earth, he could see it written all over her face.

Perhaps she learned that he had told Shadow about them, about what had happened in New Orleans. Maybe she was going to blame him for their fallout. Why he had done it, he didn’t know. In the moment, he felt he was saying it to enrage Shadow, to make him lash out in anger against Grimnir. To make him switch sides, or at the very least distract him and keep him from getting in the way of what he thought was his destiny.

Now thinking back, he knew there was another reason he had said it. He wanted to make it clear to Shadow that she too had chosen him. That she had someone who was willing to give her what she pined for, and that the more he punished her for her sins, the easier it would be for her to slip from his grasp.

He desperately wanted to ask her what had happened while he was gone, but they had somehow reached this place of fragile harmony with each other, and he wasn’t going to be the first to mess it up, even if his desire to know ate at him.

But his wish was soon granted when the sun began to dip, and he felt the train of her gaze settled upon him. She reached for the radio dial and turned the music all the way down. She had her own questions that needed answers.

“Did you know that was gonna happen?”

Sweeney shifted slightly in his seat. “Care to be more specific? A lot has happened.”

“In New Orleans.”

He took his eyes off the road for a moment and glanced at her. She had taken her sunglasses off and her eyes were looking into his imploringly. If his heart were beating in that moment, he was sure she would have been able to hear it.

“No, I didn’t,” he sighed, looking back at the road. “I did know what they are known for, and thats fucking with people, mostly. So I knew that it wouldn’t be easy… for you. I knew they would challenge you, make you work for it. I didn’t know it would be like that though.”

Laura didn’t respond, but her eyes continued to search his face.

After a moment, he slowed the car and pulled it to the side of the road. They had been driving past a large open field, green with new growth, and the sinking sun bled it’s golden rays across, lighting her head in a stunning glow.

He looked into her wide eyes. “Did you think I did?”

She held his gaze before answering. He thought he saw the light catch them shimmering with tears, but she turned from him before he could know for sure.

“I did,” she said, pushing her sunglasses on and looking back out the window. “Not anymore though.”

“The Baron. He gave you the potion then. What did he say to you before…” he paused and didn’t continue.

Her body stiffened as if the moment had overwhelmed her in a flash, sharp and raw, before she visibly shook it off.

“That he wanted to fuck me. So I let him.”

He clenched his jaw and squeezed his eyes. His hands gripped the steering wheel tightly. Images of her and the Baron came quick and fast, imprinting onto his mind. Anger, or maybe it was jealousy, sparked within him, cutting through each and every nerve, setting it on fire as it went.

“I shouldn’t have put you in that position…” he finally managed to get out.”

“I wanted to fuck him too.”

He went to speak, but no words would come out of his slackened mouth. He closed it and turned back towards the road.

“What?” she snapped.

She pulled her sunglasses off. Her eyes were shiny, but a shadow was crossing over them synchronized with the sun dipping below the horizon. “I wouldn’t be alive if I hadn’t, and neither would you. And don’t try to tell me you were innocent that night.”

He didn’t respond, but kept his eyes trained ahead in an attempt to keep his emotions in check.

”So save your holier-than-thou bullshit. I don’t want to fucking hear it.”

After a moment he turned to her, and their eyes met. He watched her falter for just a second before she seamlessly gathered herself.

“Now are we done here? Let’s go,” she said, turning away and shoving the sunglasses back on.

He turned the key in the ignition and cleared his throat. “We’re not far, but I don’t think we should go in like this. It’s getting late and our host, well, she’s a real fanatic about etiquette.”

She nodded, not looking back at him.

I’m going to find somewhere for us to stop for the night. That ok?” He asked, tentatively.

“Yes,” she responded curtly.

He gave her one last look and pulled back out onto the road.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------

He didn’t leave her that night, though the urge to drink himself into oblivion pulled and played with his mind. But leaving, even just for a little while, wouldn’t make the situation any better, so he shook it off. Instead he satisfied it by taking occasional pulls from his refilled flask and smoking his hand rolled smoking cigarettes on the curb outside, not too far from the door.

He offered them to Laura, but she refused. She lay on the other bed in the room facing the wall, and had barely spoken to him since they entered the room, other than telling him to “take a fucking shower or she wasn’t getting back in the car with him”, to which he obliged because truthfully, he couldn’t stand the smell of himself either.

She had changed out of her dress and into the bathrobe she had taken from the other motel, and had taken care to hang the dress he got her from a hanger. He took that as a sign that though not all was forgiven, she didn’t completely hate him. For the time being though, he let her alone to suffer in her silence, knowing she was either unwilling or unable to share whatever was haunting her.

When he thought he had drank just enough to soften the edges and allow for a dreamless sleep, he rolled over and closed his eyes. Instantly, images of what had been unveiled in the car played over and over in his mind, manipulating him and goading him to leave and find the nearest bar to drown them in.

But as the minutes ticked away and his mind continued to roar and getting the fuck out felt like the only option, an energy moved through the room, and he felt the weight shift on his bed as Laura slipped under the sheets to lay behind him. She tentatively lifted her hand and set it lightly on the curve of his hip.

He lay very still for fear of breaking some spell or moving too suddenly and scaring her away.

But her presence had chased those awful thoughts away, and he was suddenly very aware of the heat radiating off of her body, and her smell, her real smell not the smell of death he had grown so accustomed to, invaded his senses, drowning him in her. And as if his hand were moving on its own, he reached back and ran it down her bare leg. He paused at the dip on the back of her knee and pulled her closer to him, entwining her leg with his.

She inched her body closer, wrapping her arm tightly around his waist and closing what remained of the space between them. He felt her chest rise and fall between his shoulder blades and listened as her breath evened with sleep, and only then did his eyes close, allowing her to hold his demons at bay and lull him into his own rest.

Early the next morning, Sweeney awoke to Laura’s warm body still anchored against his. Her thin arm had curved over his chest and her hand lay flat over his heart.

He pressed his hand over hers, and after a moment she opened her fingers and threaded them with his. He felt her forehead against his back.

In the stillness he thought he could feel her heart beating, steady and strong, pumping life through her veins. As it beat, he thought of his own heart and how he never stopped to feel it within him. He imagined what it would sound like, thrumming beside her own, like it did that night he had come back.

The familiar feeling stirred again in his chest, and his heart beat loudly. Once, twice. He pulled her hand away and sat up.

“What was that?” She asked. He looked at her, her hair mussed from sleeping, mouth curved into the perfect O of wonder, and knew he couldn’t lie to her, but he also knew he didn’t know how to admit the truth.

“Nothing. I don’t know. Nothing.”

“Was that your heart beating?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

He twisted from her and stood, leaving her shocked and confused on the bed.

“We should get going anyway.” He pulled up his suspenders and began stuffing his feet into his boots.

“Sweeney,” she said sharply. He stopped and looked up at her.

“Since you’ve been back has that happened before?”

She was looking at him intently, her hazel eyes cloudy with sleep, but quickly finding their fire. She wanted the truth.

_Fuck._ Why couldn’t he just fucking lie to her? 

“Once,” he said quietly, sitting on the edge of the bed.

“When?” she pressed.

“After I came back, when I found you in the other hotel room.” He sighed and rubbed his hands over his face. “I, uh… I felt for your heartbeat and...” He shrugged, not finishing the sentence.

She nodded, her face impassive, but he knew her better than that. Thoughts whirled wildly within, making connections at the speed of light, knowing more than he gave her credit for. She was just really fucking good at hiding it.

“Ok,” she said calmly, breaking the silence. She rose from the bed and stood before him. “Let’s go make you whole.”


	7. Chapter 7

# Chapter 7

Laura used to be a really good liar.

Over the past few years especially she had excelled at it, to the point where pretending that everything was fine was as natural to her as breathing.

Shadow had been the easiest to convince, and she hid her true self from him with ease. He had married her believing she deeply loved him, that was deliriously happy with their life, that she would never think of hurting him, and for some, maybe even most, of that he was right. She had indeed loved him and she really didn’t want to hurt him. But she had been deeply unhappy and it was something that someone else could not fix for her, and in the end it had destroyed both of them.

She had been carrying so much immense guilt over Shadow that it had debilitated her and dragged her down. She was willing to do anything for his forgiveness, for the chance to prove she could be who he wanted her to be. She began to tell herself those lies again, the ones that whispered to her to hide who she in order to hold onto love.

That was, until she met him. Then suddenly she was shit at lying and hiding and it made her insane with frustration and anger but it also intrigued her.

Sure, she tried it with him, but they were cut from the same shitty cloth. He saw right through her as if she were made of glass, her painful truths written cleanly for him to see, because he was right there with her, hiding behind his own lies. He challenged her and laid the truth out bare for her to see, making it so that it was impossible for her to look away. No one had ever attempted to challenge her like he did.

_Poor Laura Moon… so many lies she cannot see..._

The Baron’s words had been on repeat in her mind lately. He showed her the truth, and it had been easy to deny at first, but every day it became more unavoidable. This morning his heart had beat. It had beat hard and loud and it had beat right at the moment she placed her hand directly over it and her own heart had surged as if it were responding to the call.

And after that, in the rush to get away, something clicked. He knew something she didn’t and she wanted to know what it was. But ultimately she wasn’t going to get any truth from him until she could start being honest with herself.

Fuck. She groaned in frustration and scrubbed her hands harshly over her face. Maybe the only enemy she needed to face was herself.

She found him leaning against the truck rolling a cigarette. He looked up at she approached, then quickly looked away, focusing his eyes gaze at his feet.

”Ready then?” he asked, still not meeting her eyes.

”Sure,” she responded flatly, pushing on her sunglasses and wrapping her arms around herself. “Everything good?”

”Ya… ya of course. Let’s go.” Sweeney pulled open the driver’s side door and stepped in.

Laura released a deep sigh. “Great,” she muttered under her breath, and throwing her coat on, she pulled herself into the passenger seat.

They exchanged an awkward smile and Sweeney pulled the car out of the lot and back on the road.

Laura pulled her knees to her chest and watched the trees pass by. She could feel him watching her every once in a while, and she forced down the urge to snap at him about staring.

“You want something to eat?” he asked, breaking the quiet and pulling her from her thoughts. She looked ahead and saw they were approaching a roadside diner and her stomach nearly growled in response. Food, she realized, was something she had forgotten she would need.

He ordered for her from the takeout window, passing her a fountain soda with a straw which she immediately took a long sip from.

“Oh my god I forgot how good things taste,” she said dreamily. “You’re not eating?”

He shrugged. “I’m not feeling particularly hungry.”

“I know that feeling,” she murmured.

“Come on,” he said, lightly touching the point of her elbow and directing her to a table.

A pulse radiated out from where he touched her. That same infuriating feeling of deja vu that had been haunting her since the moment they met. Infuriating not because she was feeling it, though the frequency of it was beginning to wear on her, but because the memories were impossible to grasp.

“What?” he asked with mild concern, gripping her arm and turning her to him. “What was that?”

She stared at him for a moment before shaking her head and gently pulling away. “Nothing, I just… felt a chill.”

He squinted at her and nodded, but she knew he didn’t believe her. “I’m gonna go have a smoke,” he said, and stalked towards the treeline.

She sat at the table and watched him while she ate. She had begun to pay closer attention to when her deja vu occurred. At first it was happening when he spoke a certain phrase or when he quirked his lip or eyebrow at her just so. A wave washed over her, a vision flash before her eyes. Then it would be gone, and he would be left looking at her like she was mental.

Now it was becoming more sensory. His smell when he would brush past her, or the roughness of his skin when his hand firmly gripped her arm. The moments when he touched her were the most intense, and the visions became the most clear, their history nearly laid out for her to read.

She felt torn between her instinctive to evade and pretend it was nothing, and the growing reality that he was as much apart of her as she was herself.

“Hey!” he yelled from across the dusty parking lot. She snapped her head up, the world crashing back in.

“You done daydreaming, dead wife? Let’s fucking go!”

She shot him a dirty look and stood. “Fucking asshole,” she sighed.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------

She didn’t have to ask where they were going, because she already knew.

A flash of white, darted along side the car, just at the edge of Laura’s vision. She turned just in time to see several small rabbits bounce from the road to the safety of the bushes.

“Don’t hit them,” she reminded him.

“Oh, I won’t. I’m going to be on my best behavior for this.”

Soon enough the evidence of Ostara’s wrath began to make itself known in the form of a harsh burnt landscape, the extent of which was both frightening and breathtaking. She glanced at Sweeney to see his reaction, but he appeared unfazed, staring at the road distractedly as it passed beneath the truck.

At the door of Ostara’s magnificent mansion, Sweeney and Laura were greeted by one of her impossibly attractive attendants who seemed more or less enthusiastic about seeing them. He begrudgingly showed them to a large receiving room and pulled the double doors shut behind him.

Laura and Sweeney exchanged a look, then she turned to the large windows that overlooked the sparse landscape. Occasionally a small rabbit would enthusiastically hop by.

The doors to the room swung open and Ostara rushed in looking ever the pissed off goddess.

“Well, well. Look who the cat dragged in.”

Sweeney turned to her flashed an enticing grin.

Ostara didn’t crack. “No, don’t start with me. You’re a wanted man, Mad Sweeney. I don’t want you here.”

“Ah, figured I’d have a target on my back.”

Ostara ignored him. “And laws of the universe say you shouldn’t even be here right now.”

“Oh, I got a one way ticket back to paradise from this one,” he said, nodding towards Laura, who poked her head out from behind him.

Ostara’s eyes glinted.

“I see,” she whispered, leaning forward and plucking invisible dust off of his jacket. “Shoe’s on the other foot now, isn’t it? Dead doesn’t look so bad on you though. Should I ask her if she wants _you_ alive?”

Sweeney rolled his eyes.

“Well…” Ostara said breathlessly. “Lovely Laura Moon.”

Laura stiffened as Ostara stepped towards her and cupped her face with both hands. She looked deeply into Laura’s eyes, occasionally squinting as if she were trying to make out something from a very far distance.

She settled her hands on Laura’s shoulders and smiled warmly. “You’ve had quite a journey, Laura Moon.”

Laura nodded. “You could say that.”

“And a traumatic return,” she added seriously. “This stinks of death Loa. You know, I’ve never been a fan of their… lifestyle,” she said with a pointed look at Sweeney. “But I do have a certain amount of respect for those of us with the power to resurrect…”

Suddenly Ostara’s voice trailed off. Her eyes widened and she stepped back.

“Something is different with you,” she announced.

“Ya, I’m alive,” Laura stammered, wrapping her arms around herself.

“No, not that. Something else,” she reached forward and laid her on the center of Laura’s chest. She closed her eyes. Laura’s eyes darted to Sweeney, who was watching Ostara with a mix of bewilderment and concern.

“It’s moving through your veins, mixing with you blood. It’s changing you.” Ostara said, opening her eyes and removing her hand. She looked pointedly at Laura. “My dear, did you, by chance, happen to drink a love potion?”

Laura’s eyes widened and she felt the heat rise in her cheeks. Her eyes flashed to Sweeney, then back at Ostara.

“Love potion?” Sweeney exclaimed, staring past Ostara at Laura.

“It wasn’t. Don’t get too excited,” Laura retorted.

“Don’t lie to me, dead wife.”

“I’m not! And stop fucking calling me that!” She yelled.

Ostara looked back and forth between the both of them. “Oh, I see. You two are...?”

“No!” They both yelled in unison.

“Ok,” she said, nodding. But a smile had pulled at her lips and she gave one last long look at Laura before turning back to Sweeney.

“So what do you want from me?”

“I think you know,” he said. “And I think you still owe me.”

Ostara laughed sharply. “What makes you think I won’t help you out of the kindness of my heart?”

“Because I know your type, and nothing comes for free,” Sweeney said.

“I don’t want trouble. I had enough of that the last time you were here.”

“We don’t plan on sticking around after this. Places to be,” he said, stealing a look at Laura.

Ostara mulled it over, then she nodded, and eyes sparkling. Laura looked on wearily.

“I’ll help,” she said, “But with one condition...”

“Fucking told ya,” Sweeney interrupted.

“That you,” Ostara continued with a glare, “Stay and attend my private party tomorrow evening.”

“Oh for fucks sake,” Sweeney moaned. “We don’t have time for this!”

“Tisk tisk,” clucked Ostara. “You’re in my house, these are my conditions. And you’re going to want to be there. Both of you. You’ll make time for this.” She looked pointedly at Laura, who then turned to look at Sweeney.

“I don’t think right now is a good time for me to be flaunting my return.”

“No one outside this house will know you’re here,” she promised. “You can trust that.”

“Maybe we should…” Laura added with a shrug.

“Ahh! Fucking fine,” he bit out in frustration.

“Fantastic! I’ll see you tomorrow morning. First day of the new moon, perfect for a resurrection.”

“Wait, what? Why can’t you do it now?” Sweeney asked, fighting to keep his patience and his tone in check.

“I told you, new moons make for spectacular resurrections. That, and I have a party to plan. My staff will see that you get settled.” She brushed past Sweeney, shoes clicking across the marble floor before she disappeared through doors.

“Fuck!” He yelled, kicking an oak side table and nearly toppling an ornate glass lamp perched on top.

“Will you calm down? I was dead for weeks, you can stand one more day. Don’t be a fucking baby.”

He glared and pointed at her.

“Did you take a love potion?” he demanded. “And don’t fucking lie to me.”

“Why are you a target?” she countered, crossing her arms across her chest. “And do not tell me what to do.”

“What!?”

Laura stared at him, unflinching.

He seethed. “The spear that your husband put through me, it was Grimnir’s. I sent it to the hoard before I died.”

_Husband_. Shadow killed Sweeney. She sharply drew in a breath and he took notice.

“Now, did you drink a fucking love potion?” he asked again.

“No.”

“You’re lying.”

“I am not!” she yelled.

“I can’t believe you worked at a casino,” he scoffed. “You’ve got a terrible fucking tell.”

She clenched her fists, her anger rising.

“I’m not doing this right now,” she said and attempted to walk past him out of the room. He grabbed her upper arm and turned her to him.

“Sweeney,” she warned.

He hesitated, but only for a moment. “What happened with your man?”

“Seriously!?” Her nostrils flared angrily. She grabbed his hand and bent it backwards.

“Fuck!” he screamed in pain.

“You really don’t fucking get it,” she hissed through clenched teeth. She bent his wrist further, bringing him to his knees at her feet.

“I’m not doing this with you,” she spelled out for him clearly. She released his wrist and he immediately began massaging it. She turned to walk away.

“You can’t keep hiding, dead wife,” he shouted at her back.

She threw an arm up and gave him the finger as she pulled the door closed behind her.

Laura immediately went to find Ostara, but learned from a handsome man carrying a stack of neatly folded laundry that she had already left for the day.

“Fuck,” she mumbled to herself. She chewed on her nails nervously. Ostara had seen something. Something that had to do with her return, and Sweeney’s blood, and the effect it was having on her body. And she was desperate to know.

She looked gloomily back at the room Sweeney still occupied. She considered going back and just letting it all out to him. The Baron’s potion and it's the final ingredient, his impossible questions…

_What will you do when your skin warms for another?_

His blood that now flowed through her reborn veins….

His blood that had given her life.

Just then the door opened and he walked into the hallway. Their eyes met, and she sucked in a breath as the butterflies within her swirled wildly. She couldn’t do it. Not yet.

She turned and walked the other way, and he didn’t follow.

Laura spent the majority of the afternoon and evening doing what she did best, avoiding Sweeney, which turned out to be rather easy to do considering the many hallways, rooms, and expanse of grounds the house consisted of.

The time she spent alone allowed her that precious, and sometimes dangerous, time when she could be with her thoughts and away from prying, concerned eyes. She couldn’t stop thinking about his blood running through her, and how two people who were connected on so many levels couldn’t go more than an hour without hurting each other.

When dinner was served they sat in the dining room in silence while Laura ate and he glowered and drank expensive whiskey from a tumbler and tried in vain to catch her eye.

“My wrist really hurts, you know,” he grumbled.

Laura pretended she didn’t hear and continued to eat.

He scowled at her. His chair scraped noisily as he pushed from the table and walked to the bar. He loudly made himself another drink, dropping the large cubes into the glass so that they rolled and clanked around the bottom.

She inspected a golden candelabra on the table with an intense interest.

He slammed his fresh drink on the table. “Hey,” he said, voice rising. “Hello!”

She ignored him and relaxed back in her chair and sipped her white wine, privately rejoiced in being able to taste it again. Her stubbornness was impossible to shake even when she knew she probably should, and really, she wouldn’t be herself if she wasn’t just a little stubborn.

When the attendants entered to clear the plates Laura asked if they could show her to her room and Sweeney made to interject but she shot him a look that silenced him. He stood instead, taking the bottle of whiskey with him, and followed them out of the room.

He led them down a long hallway and opened a door towards the end. With a nod, he indicated to Sweeney that it was his room. Sweeney looked at Laura and she rolled her eyes when he sighed dramatically and entered his room.

A couple of doors down was Laura’s room, and while she was grateful to be able to sleep somewhere so neat and clean after their stretch of rundown motel rooms, it was uncomfortably large and ornate, and instantly she felt incredibly out of place and uneasy.

She tried to relax by taking a long shower, letting the hot water burn her skin long after she had scrubbed it clean. She changed into the pajamas that were conveniently hung in the wardrobe and while they were entirely too girly, they felt heavenly against the delicate bruises on her still healing body. She slipped under the slippery sheets of the too large bed and stared at the ceiling.

And the time ticked away. She rolled back and forth and fluffed and removed and added pillows, but after an hour she knew it would be useless. Sleeping next to him had ruined her.

She silently cursed to herself and in the admittance of defeat, pulled herself from the depths of the bed.

The house was silent, and she stepped lightly through the darkness, sliding her hand along the wall to keep her footing, bumping out over gilded frames and wall sconces as she went.

When she reached his room she paused, her breath tight in her throat. If it was locked, then she would know. She would turn around and go back to her room and deal. She remembered how to do that, right? But If it was opened, then…

She took a deep breath, and turned the knob. It pushed open easily and her heart skipped. She slipped into his room through the small space that she had made and closed the door quietly behind her.

Moonlight streamed in through the gauzy curtains, reaching across the large canopied bed and lighting his form as he lay under the thin bedspread. He was on his back, one hand thrown across his stomach that rose and fell with his breath.

Laura crept around the bed. She lifted the covers and slipped underneath, but instead of sliding close to him, she curled her body on the edge. Immediately Sweeney rolled onto his side and she stilled, feeling his eyes moving over her through the dark. The sheets rustled and his hand reached out and settled on top of hers, and for a moment they held hands across the space between them, sharing a fixed gaze that carried with it the weight of what the other was feeling.

“This is hard for me,” she finally whispered to him, “but I’m sorry.”

He nodded slightly and moved his thumb back and forth across her open palm, sending a shiver through her.

“So am I,” he said, his voice breathy with what Laura thought sounded like relief. “And I didn’t tell you about the spear because I don’t want to worry you.”

She nodded and squeezed his hand, but in her mind she knew it was too late for that.

“I put it in the hoard,” he continued. “But I should have known they would be looking for me.”

“It’s ok,” she said quietly, then after a long sigh, “but we should really be more careful now.”

_We_. She startled herself and her mind flitted to Shadow and their last conversation in Cairo.

She swallowed. “Uh, Shadow… we’re not… it’s over.” She felt hot tears stinging her eyes, and she realized it was the first time she had acknowledged that they were done. Saying it out loud gave it a finality she needed to admit in order to accept it. She took a breath, and continued. “And I know it’s important to you, to know. I want you to know.”

His hand stilled and through the dark she felt his energy shift with the immensity of what she had revealed.

“And what about you?” he asked quietly.

“What about me?”

He hesitated. “Do you still want him?”

She paused and considered the question, one that had once seemed so overwhelming, dogging her from the minute she had come back from the dead. Maybe even long before she had died. And she decided in that moment that she was tired of running from it. She was tired of lying.

“I don’t know if I ever did,” she said with some difficulty. She took a deep breath to steady herself. “And it took a long time for me to understand that,” she admitted.

He didn’t respond immediately, but she felt an enormous weight lift off of her on the tired wings of her long overdue confession, and a new space was left, another part of herself that she was ready to reclaim.

She met his eyes that had never stopped watching her, eyes that always betrayed his emotions, that had always given her access to his truth. A truth that she finally had the clarity to see and accept.

“Is this ok?” she finally asked, her heart thumping loudly within her chest.

He nodded, but just barely. “Come here,” he whispered.

He slid his cool hand up her arm and around her back and pulled her to his chest. He was cold. She felt the heat being pulled from her into him and she pressed closer, entwining her legs with his.

It was an intimate position that they settled into easily, as if they had lain like that before, hundreds of times over. Her legs wrapped around his, their fingers pressed into each other’s skin, the light, tentative circles he rubbed on her back. The memories stumbled through her mind and she pressed her eyes shut trying to catch one, and for a moment she could see them as they were. They were in an unrecognizable place and at an unrecognizable time, but it was them and she felt, for the first time in a long time, that this was a place that she belonged.

“This is ok,” he whispered into her hair, and she nodded against his chest, closing her eyes to fall asleep to the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the delay!! Two chapter update tonight. Thank for you reading and please enjoy! xx

# Chapter 8

Something was nagging Sweeney, and he didn’t know why.

Whatever it was had worked its way into his mind while he was sleeping and when he woke it was there, teeth bared and ready to pounce, wracking his mind with questions, insecurities, and doubts. It created a phantom pain, making his chest ache and his heart hurt.

He closed his eyes and tried to will the feelings away. He opened them and stared at the ceiling. The storm continued.

Laura was pinned to his side, one arm draped over his waist. It was a view he had become familiar with. Her face was pressed against his shoulder and her slow, even breath warmed his skin. He was becoming used to having her sleeping at his side. He knew slept better with her there.

But that was just it. That simple idea of “being used to her” was from whence the nagging thoughts materialized. He was afraid to get used to this, terrified really, and it was that fear that fed the storm in his mind. It made him question things, and doubt reality, and that was always very dangerous for him.

He realized that he couldn’t trust, at least not yet, that this was something real. And he wasn’t sure if he was willing to try. It had been a long time since he had given his heart to someone, and the thought of opening himself to the potential pain terrified him. Because Laura, as much apart of his life as she was, was frighteningly unpredictable. She could let go whenever she chose, callously and without a reason, and he would be left alone to pick up the pieces.

“Fuck,” he sighed into the air, holding his hand over his eyes. Nothing could ever be easy. His suffering never ceased.

The bed sheets rustled when he slipped out. She stirred and he stood still until she settled again. Sweeney pulled on his clothes and left in search of Ostara.

If there was one thing he was definitely sure of it was that he didn’t want to be half alive anymore.

\--------------------------------------------

He found Ostara waiting for him in the conservatory, glowing in the golden light that streamed through the glass ceiling. It was quiet except for the impatient tapping of her toe beating time to the trickling of the water in the marble fountain.

“Finally,” she huffed. “You know, I’ve got a lot to do today and a resurrection wasn’t exactly on the agenda. And no smoking in the house.” She reached up, she pulled the cigarette from his mouth and stamped it out with her shoe.

He stared at her blankly and unfazed.

“What’s up?” she asked. “You would think a dead man gifted with resurrection would be a little more thrilled.”

“Tell me what the wife is hiding.”

Ostara sighed. “You know it’s not my business to say, it’s hers. And I like her,” she said thoughtfully. “I don’t think she’s the type I’d want to piss off.”

“Somethings different,” he sighed, running a hand through his hair. He went to light another cigarette, but thought better of it.

Ostara studied him. “There is.”

Sweeney sat on the garden bench and held his head in his hands. Ostara lowered herself next to him. She placed a hand on his knee.

“I can tell you this. She was given a potion. A love potion, definitely, that restored her life. And there was something in it, something strong and pure, something old. And that something, whatever it was, it didn’t just give her life. Its enhanced her. Strengthened her.”

“What is it?” he asked, turning his head to her.

Ostara frowned and shook her head. “I could guess, but I don’t think I should. It’s up to her to be honest with you about it.”

He nodded but remained pensive.

“Things kept in the dark are always brought to light. You know that well,” she said pointedly.

A small white rabbit hopped to them and sniffed at Sweeney’s boot. It looked up at Ostara and twitched its little pink nose.

“My ears are always pricked. I hear things,” she said, gazing distractedly at the rabbit as it scurried away. She turned back to him, her face suddenly serious. “Not about her, but about you. About who you were. Who you are.”

Suddenly he was back in the funeral home in Cairo, drunk and lying on the couch in Ibis’ study, listening to his voice tell the oldest story of them all, his pen scratching furiously in the journal laid flat before him, and Sweeney struggling to keep up, to remember.

“I’ve been many things,” he said softly, his mind racing to the forests and the battles and the feel of the smooth spear as it glided across his palm, the sound it made as it pierced the soft spot on a man’s neck. He ran his hand up his own chest, feeling the ragged edge of the new scar beneath his shirt.

“One of those things is who you are meant to be,” she said tenderly, pulling his hand from his chest and taking it into her own. “And you know which one. You shouldn’t be living your life like this. You were once a great, powerful, revered god. You can be that once again.”

She looked deeply into his eyes, reading him, and he felt vulnerable and exposed.

“I don’t know what’s real. I thought I did,” he said thickly, his eyes brimming with tears.

“We both know there’s a storm coming. Hell, it’s already here. We’ll need to choose a side, and soon.”

“I think you know my side,” he said with finality. “I’ve dug my grave, drawn my line in the sand. Question is where you stand.”

She nodded and gave his hand a firm squeeze. “Hearing things is one thing. It’s looking into someone’s eyes straight through to their soul that shows their truth. I would hope that when you look into mine, you would see where my loyalties lies.” She stood and pulled him up with her.

“Mad Sweeney, when I bring you back, are you ready to reclaim your position among us?”

“I haven’t been one of your kind in a long time.”

“Oh, it’s like riding a bike. A little practice and a little belief is all it takes,” she said, placing her palms flat against Sweeney’s chest, her fingers splayed wide.

“This isn’t going to be entirely pleasant,” she warned.

“Just do it,” he grunted through clenched teeth, squeezing his eyes shut.

Ostara closed her eyes and pressed.

For what felt like a long time nothing happened, and he cracked one of his eyes open. He was about to ask Ostara just what the fuck she was getting at when he heard it, a light rustling through the leaves of the plants in the conservatory, starting far away and building up and around the room.

Then a breeze, as light as a breathy whisper, blew across his ear and around his head, lifting the strands of hair on his forehead. The rustling sound morphed, became louder and louder until what had sounded like squirrely bees in their hive became the drone of a hundred engines all running at the same time. The breeze grew into a howling wind that whipped around them, engulfing them, lifting Ostara’s dress and her hair, whipping it across her face.

A burning sensation began to form is his chest where her hands gripped him hard. It spread quickly like an out of control wildfire, lighting every nerve and coursing through every vein. He felt like he was burning from the inside out. He heard faint shouting over the roar and he realized that it was coming from his throat.

Ostara never wavered. Her eyes remained closed, her hands pressing fire through Sweeney’s chest, her mouth moving in wordless whispers. The wind swirled around them faster and faster and it felt like it would never end until suddenly it did and she released him, and Sweeney, gripping his chest, dropped hard onto his knees as his heart came thundering back to life.

Ostara, hair wild and cheeks flushed, crouched in front of him.

“Life restored,” she said breathlessly, lifting his chin and looking into his watering eyes. After a moment, she nodded with satisfaction and stood. He looked up at her, chest heaving and tracks of tears streaming down his cheeks.

“That makes us even,” she said seriously, before adding with a smile, “Breakfast will be in the dining room when you’re feeling up to it.”

Sweeney reached for the bench and heaved himself onto it. He hung his head and listened to the sound of her heels as they disappeared from the conservatory. A dull ache had started at the back of his neck was spreading rapidly around his skull. He rubbed at it with one hand, and raising the other, gave it a quick flick at the wrist. The cool metal appeared, gripped between his thumb and forefinger, the coin that started this whole thing basking in the light of day once again.

“The cause and solution of all of my fucking problems,” he murmured as he gazed at it, the coin glittering innocently.

“You know, talking to yourself is considered the first sign of madness.”

Sweeney looked up to see Laura standing next to the fountain, her warm eyes holding his, a small smile pulling at the corner of her lips. He looked away, hastily wiping the remnants of his tears from his face.

“So that’s it,” she said, leaning forward to get a closer look. It was golden and shining, looking nothing like an object that had been settled deep in the guts of two different people.

“I don’t think I’ve ever loved and hated something so much in my life, and I’ve lived a long fucking life.” He turned the coin over in his fingers, studying it.

“Even me?” she asked.

“Who said anything about love?” It slipped out before he had a chance to stop it and instantly he regretted it.

She flinched, hurt gracing her perfect face and wiping away her smile. He felt like an asshole.

He didn’t know why he had said it, especially when in his core he knew it was far from the truth. But his nagging worries of that morning lingered, and now every beat of his revived heart pulsed with the brutal emotional storm. Frustration and resentment at being back in this fucked world fighting in the same fucked up war, forced to choose between two sides he wanted nothing to do with. Fear and weakness at his inability to allow her into his heart and into his mind.

And then there was the secrets she held onto. She continued to come to his bed every night with that damn secret between them, and he hated it. He had allowed it, but he hated it. She had so much power over him, more than she probably realized. She could destroy him. She _had_ destroyed him. She could do it anytime she wanted and at the moment he least expected it. He was damned if he was going to let that happen again..

“Something’s bothering me.”

He flicked his wrist again and the coin vanished. Her eyes widened. The trick still dazzled her.

He stared at her long and hard before he spoke, his new heartbeat pounding painfully in his chest, his head throbbing with the crush of new life. He remembered how soft her skin felt and how she looked when she slept, so vulnerable and trusting. How she gave him that charming crooked smile when he knew she was softening to him despite herself. How he loved her more than anything in this whole fucked up world, but was too afraid to admit it. He shook his head, roughly pushing it all out of his mind.

“I can’t keep doing this.”

She pressed her lips together. “Doing what?” she asked apprehensively.

“You know what,” he sighed. “This. You and me. Whatever the fuck it is. I thought I could, but I can’t.”

“What? Why?” She was hurt. He could hear it in her voice. 

“What do you want from me?”

She lifted her trembling chin. “You agreed to help me. To kill him. You promised.”

He shook his head in frustration. “See, that’s not it though, is it? You didn’t bring me back to life just to help you kill that cunt. If that were the only reason, you wouldn’t be climbing into my bed every night. Or is it that you’re looking for a rebound from your man, and I just happen to be available.”

A quick, hot flush rose in her cheeks and the hurt in her eyes turned to anger.

_There she is_ , he thought, and suddenly the idea of fighting with her, of doing what they had always done best, caught fire in his chest and burned.

She opened her mouth to speak, but he cut her off sharply.

“The last time I saw you, in New Orleans, after...“ he paused and looked away, taking a deep breath before continuing. “You wanted nothing to do with me then. What was it you called me? Wednesday’s whore, was it?”

She swallowed and raised her head slightly and he knew he stung her.

“Why are you bringing this up? I thought we were past this.”

“ _You_ might be past it, but I’m not. You have no idea how much that hurt me.”

“Well I was hurt too!” she screamed. “I trusted you!”

“But not enough to know that I wouldn't use you like that, right? Cause’ that’s all I’m fucking good for, right? Following orders, fucking and fighting.”

“Jesus! Seriously? What do you want me to say?”

“What I want is for you to tell me the truth. I was happily dead, you’ll need to fill that little mystery in for me,” he said, standing and stepping closer to her. “I want to know what changed between New Orleans, when you accused me of fucking you on his orders and left, and bringing me back to life and sleeping next to me. What is this?”

She squeezed her eyes shut and gritted her teeth. “Why does it even matter, why can’t it just be?”

“Because it can’t. Not with us.”

She let out a sarcastic laugh. “What does that even fucking mean? Don’t act like you haven’t had plenty of others… even on that that fucking night you won’t stop reminding me of.”

“Not like this,” he said firmly, shaking his head. “This is something different.”

“And how would you fucking know?”

“Because I know you. And I feel it. And...” He paused abruptly and swallowed. The argument he had knowingly caused had quickly gotten away from him, and he realized he was revealing more than he was comfortable with.

“What?” she asked sharply. “Don’t be a fucking pussy. If you’ve got something to say then fucking say it.”

He clenched his jaw and narrowed his eyes at her. She was going to get it out of him one way or another. He had awakened the beast, and there was no going back now. In two steps he was in front of her, staring her down, and she pushed her shoulders back and her chin up, meeting his intensity head on.

“That night… that was as much of your truth as it was mine. You just aren’t able to admit it. You’ve been running from it. That night scared you.”

She faltered and tears pushed into the corners of her eyes. He knew he struck a nerve. She sniffled, shaking her head. “No, I...”

“No. Don’t make up some excuse to get out of this. Don’t do that. Not to me. Not after everything.”

“You don’t know me, and you don’t know how I feel,” she said bitterly, and turned to leave, but he knew her moves and was quick, and his hand firmly grasped her arm, spinning her around to face him. Her breath was coming quick and her face was flushed.

“Let go,” she demanded weakly.

“Stop. Running.”

She pulled her hand away furiously “I’m not!”

“Then say it. Tell me why I’m here. Tell me what you’re hiding from me.”

“No. And you don’t get to tell me what to do.”

“Then I’m fucking done. I’m not gonna be your play thing.”

“Is that what you think this is?”

“Well it fits your track record, don’t it? I’m just the last in a long line of men who...”

She slapped him hard across the face before he could finish, sending him crashing deep into the hydrangeas. He groaned as he sat up, pulling the broken flowers and leaves off of him.

“Fuck you, asshole.” She let a heartbreaking sob slip from her throat and an ache bloomed in his chest at the sound. He knew that show of weakness must have killed her. 

“What the fuck do _you_ want?” She spit out, her hands gesturing wildly. “Do you want me to have to say it, that I’m afraid? Is that what you want to hear? Because I am. I’m afraid. I’m afraid of this, and that I’ll fuck up. And then I’ll hurt you, the way I hurt Shadow. Happy now?”

He stood painfully and stepped from the bushes, careful to keep a space between them. The air was thick with her hurt and her rage, he could almost taste it. The ache inside him worsened, knotting his stomach and filling him with dread. He had done it. He had finally pushed her too far.

“Because I did,” she continued, her voice breaking. “I hurt him really, really bad. And he still can’t forgive me. What kind of person does that to someone like him, huh? I’m not good. I’m not. And I never deserved him. I don’t deserve love.” She choked back her sob this time and it died in her throat.

Her eyes were brimming with tears, but not one was spilled and for a moment he simply admired her strength and impeccable ability to control her emotions so completely. He realized too late what it must have taken for her to open up to him, to be vulnerable around him, and that even the simple act of sleeping next to him was harder for her than he would ever understand. He felt panic rising in his throat at the idea that he had, in a few short minutes, destroyed any progress that they had made.

He took a tentative step towards her, reaching his hand out, but she reeled back and wrapped her arms tightly around herself.

“I keep thinking that maybe if we don’t put a name on this, whatever it is, then maybe I won’t do it again. Maybe I won’t ruin this… Because you're right, this is different. And I’m fucking terrified,” she continued, her voice tired and hoarse. “But if I’m afraid, then so are you... and you know it. I just have the fucking balls to admit it.”

And with that she turned and this time he watched her go.

\--------------------------------------------

Laura was miserable and she now found herself in the last place she wanted to be, standing awkwardly in Ostara’s massive closet, a cloud of dresses and shoes scattered around her feet.

She had tried to hide again, positioning herself on a window seat in the farthest corner of Ostara’s library, but her heart sank when she heard the familiar clacking of furious heels, and she quickly wiped the remnants of her tears and made herself known.

“It know it’s in here somewhere!” Ostara rifled through what must have been hundreds of dresses, her eyes searching wildly for one in particular.

“Ah!” she screamed excitedly, and Laura jumped. “Here it is!” She thrust a dress into Laura’s hands and spun her around to face a full length mirror.

“Oh, isn’t it beautiful,” she sighed. “Last time I wore it, I stole the show. It will fit you _perfectly_.”

Laura couldn’t remember the last time she had worn something that was even a fraction of the beauty of one Ostara’s dress. Her wedding maybe, but the thought caused a pang in her chest and she forced herself to stop from thinking of it.

“It’s stunning,” Laura agreed. “But I can’t wear this.” She handed the dress back to her.

“Don’t be ridiculous, you have to. What else would you wear?” Ostara asked exasperatedly, looking her up and down.

Laura instinctively moved her hands to her dress, smoothing it over her sides and hips.

“This won’t work?” She asked, shrugging her shoulders.

Ostara looked aghast. “Of course not!” She huffed. “This is an elegant dinner party, Mrs. Moon. What would people think?”

“I just don’t think I’m meant to wear something like this. This is like something your people wear.”

Ostara turned Laura to the mirror and placed the dress in front of her, and Laura reluctantly took it in her hands again. She leaned over her shoulder and winked at Laura's reflection. “Honey, you don’t know how close to being my people you really are.”

Laura met her eyes in the mirror. “What are you trying to say?”

Ostara shrugged. “You tell me. Don't you think it’s about time you were honest about what brought you back to life?”

Laura spun around, her mouth agape.

“Close your mouth Mrs. Moon, the least you can do is remember your manners.” Laura snapped her mouth shut and Ostara reached out and took her hand. She turned it over and traced the lines with one flawlessly manicured fingernail, settling it on the blue veins running through her wrist.

“Don’t you feel it,” she asked, fingers skimming across Laura’s skin. “Running through your veins? You used the blood of a god. What did you expect?”

“What?” Laura exclaimed, tearing her hand away. She rubbed the spot Ostara had touched. “God? No. He’s not a god, he’s a leprechaun.”

Ostara pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes. “Ah, so you did use his blood?”

“Well, I….”

“You know, I took you for being smarter than this.”

“I feel different,” Laura admitted, unable and unwilling to continue to bear the wait of her secret following her blow out with Sweeney. “Like I’m alive, but I’m not who I was before I died. And I’m still strong, like when I had the coin.”

“Well, that’s what’ll happen when mix the blood of a human and a god. A piece of him, his power, his essence, it exists within you now. He’s as much apart of you as you are yourself.”

“Am I… a god?”

Ostara tipped her head back and let out a long, loud laugh, causing Laura blush furiously. “No, no, no… You’re definitely not a god, honey. Not with that skin. But… You’re not just a human anymore. You’re enhanced. Only time will tell how his blood will impact you.”

“He never told me he was a god.”

”Mad Sweeney has been on this earth longer than you or I could ever imagine, my dear. That man has lived thousands of lives before you or I ever lived one,” Ostara explained.

“Tell me about him? Please?” Laura asked. She made little attempt to hide the desperation in her voice.

Ostara sighed. “Ok. But only because I like you. You might want to sit down for this.”

Laura nodded numbly as Ostara began his story.


	9. Chapter 9

# Chapter 9

Sweeney tugged uncomfortably at the pants he was wearing. They weren’t his pants and he hated them. When he tried to slip into the backyard wearing his own dusty, albeit comfortable, clothes, Ostara sent her men to wrestle him back into the house. They were set to strip him themselves and dress him in the much cleaner outfit that she had chosen for him, but he told them to fuck off and to tell her she’d won as he kicked them out of his room and begrudgingly pulled on the clothes.

He tried to tell her it would be useless putting him in white, that he always managed to get it dirty, but she dismissed him and told him that white was the perfect color for a late summer affair, especially for the pure souls of the newly arisen.

“Fucking purity,” he scoffed. He couldn’t remember the last time someone, if ever, had referred to him as pure.

An exclamation from across the yard startled him, and he spilled his whiskey down the front of his pants.

“Fuck! Fuck...” He furiously wiped at the spill on his crotch, looking up to see what the commotion was about. His hand stilled. His breath caught in his throat. And he forgot all about the pants.

He had lived a very long time, that was true. And he had known many women, intimately, both human and god alike. But despite the long life of easy distractions that those many other women had provided, they had never made him truly happy, and few, if any, were ever deserving of his love. There had only been one true love that he had been chasing for an eternity. There existed only one that could bring him to his knees. And in this moment, she nearly did just that.

Laura stepped nervously onto the terrace in a shimmering, flowing dress that hugged her shape in all the right places, leaving little to the imagination. Ostara was gliding close behind, a glittering smile plastered on her face. He saw the heads of the guests turn as she paraded Laura through the crowd, their eyes fixed on her and their heads bent close to whisper to one another, and he knew how much she hated the attention.

Instinctively he took a step forward to go to her and protect her from their prying eyes, but he stopped in his tracks, remembering the way he had hurt her that afternoon in the conservatory. How her eyes shined with tears when he cruelly pushed her away. The sick feeling in his stomach rose like the tide and he shoved his hands into his pockets and took a step back.

Someone touched her arm and as her eyes turned to them, his followed, and realization washed over him as the reason for why they were needed at the party suddenly became very clear. This wasn’t a lighthearted and fun interlude from their plans. This was a business meeting.

Bilquis ran her fingers along Laura’s bare arm, bringing it to rest on her shoulder, and she leaned in close to her ear. She spoke to her amidst the crowd, and every so often Laura, listening closely, nodded and agreed.

A knot hardened in his chest, and he turned away. He sulked towards the tree line, far enough from the party that the hum of voices had faded, but close enough that he could still keep an eye on her. He had hoped, naively, that he would at least get tonight to make it up to her, to reclaim precious time with her before the realities of Grimnir and his selfish war poisoned them for good, and he would have to think about losing her before she would ever really be his.

He heard approaching footsteps sweeping through the grass behind him and he spun around, his hands pulled from his pockets and at the ready.

It was her, the light of the full moon reflecting on her shimmering skirt, her hair flowing in soft curls around her thin shoulders. She stood impossibly still, halfway between the terrace and where he had positioned himself at the edge of the woods, her gaze set upon him.

He wasn’t sure what version of Laura he had expected to see tonight, but this Laura… felt like someone new altogether. Gone was the anger and the hurt that had reflected in her eyes earlier. Instead, she was looking at him as if she were seeing him for the first time, in a new light, and her eyes filled with that wonder and thrill and longing. He saw her as she had been, long before he had said those hateful things to her, before they had been forced together in this ugly shitstorm of Grimnir’s making, when they were still them, but different, and love, not pain, had brought them together.

But will she remember you too? came a voice from his depths, and his mind stumbled, leaving a space for the uncertainties to creep in.

Then her lips quirked up into her crooked smile, chasing away the demons, and his breath released in relief at the sight. She was there, under the glamour and the awe, through the cruel words and insecurities and their shared pain, she was still his Laura, and for the first time in a long time he was able to really meet her eyes and hold them. This was her. This was the woman he was meant to love forever.

His heart skipped when she took the steps to close the distance between them, and he clumsily pulled a cigarette from behind his ear to help hide his shaking hands.

“Hi,” she said, stopping several feet from him and wrapping her arms around herself.

“Hey.” He twisted the unlit cigarette between his fingers and pushed it back behind his ear, then stuffed his hands back into his pockets. “You’re glowing. Literally.”

A blush crept across her cheeks.

“It’s not me,” she laughed, shaking her head. “It’s this dress and this place…”

“No. It’s you.”

He held her eyes for a moment before she looked away, clearing her throat.

“Well, you clean up nice. Who would have thought,” she quipped slyly, stepping towards him and reaching out to tug gently on the sleeve of the cream linen button down that Ostara had forced him into. “I see you still hung on to these, though,” she said with a frown, fingering one of his dusty suspenders.

“Ya, well it’s bad enough I have to wear this, she wasn’t getting my bloody suspenders too.”

“Big baby,” she teased, smirking up at him.

“I see the great goddess of love is here,” he said, nodding towards the house. “What is she selling? Looking for another kiss?”

“Why, are you jealous?

“Pfft… No”

“She’s interested in a partnership.”

He clenched his jaw and nodded. “Figured as much,” he sighed. “What makes you think you can trust her?”

She looked back over her shoulder and shrugged. “Something tells me she has as much of a reason to kill Wednesday as I do.”

“So that’s it then? The ‘Kill Grimnir Planning Committee’s’ here, parties over?”

“Not tonight,” she said, looking back at him. “We’re going to talk in the morning. So… we have some time”. A familiar tint burned her cheeks again, and his breath caught in his throat.

The band began to play a slow, familiar song, and Laura’s eyes became wide. She turned to look back at the party.

“I used to love to dance,” she sighed. “Shadow, he wasn’t always so willing. I was a really good dancer.”

He watched her gazing wistfully at the other guests dancing. He felt a pull at his heart and before he could talk himself out of it, he cleared his throat and stepped behind her.

“Ok,” he said, reaching a hand towards her.

“What?” she asked, turning around and glancing at his outstretched hand.

“Let’s dance.”

“Seriously?” she laughed.

He shrugged, looking out over the crowd of people. “Well? Will you take my hand?”

A curious expression crossed her face, and her eyes became distant as if she were trying hard to remember something that was difficult to grasp. She looked back at him, intrigued, and she reached out to him, slipping her small hand into his, and he pulled her in.

They moved slowly and somewhat awkwardly at first, and he kept a space between them, his hand resting gingerly on her waist. He could feel her warmth radiating through the thin material. She was exactly what she said she was: A good dancer. He just needed to remember how to do this. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes and he began to move with her.

It was easier for him to remember then he thought, especially with her taking the lead. The moment his eyes closed he instantly became lost in the slow sultry sound of the singers voice, the smooth swaying of her hips and her hand sliding from his shoulder to the back of his neck, moving her body close enough to lay her head against him, the vibrations of her low humming reverberating through his shirt and skin into his soul.

The rest of the world faded away, and he questioned whether it had even existed after all. He drew her hand to his lips, and pressed a slow kiss to the center of her palm and the inside of her wrist, and he could feel the blood pumping through the thin skin, her heartbeat so close to the surface.

Like she had been stung, she immediately pulled away and he threw his hands up in defense. Her eyes were wide and she was chewing nervously on her bottom lip.

“What? What is it?” he asked, looking down and around. The rest of the party was as they had left them. Oblivious.

“I used your blood.” The words tumbled quickly from her lips as if saying them fast would dull the impact.

“You what?” he asked, his head tilted.

“The last ingredient for the potion was left for me to find. It needed to be blood. So I… I used yours.”

“Is that what you’ve been hiding then, wife?”

She nodded slightly, looking at the ground.

Why mine?” he asked, and though something inside had already whispered the answer, he had to hear her say it for him to believe.

She held her breath for a moment, releasing it slowly, and with it, the heavy secret she had been hiding since the moment she had brought him back. “Because… I needed to use blood infused with love.”

The words hung in the air allowing him time to process, and Laura said no more because no more was needed to be said. Her relief was palpable.

“How did you know?” He finally asked.

She looked up at him. “I traded for my truth. I asked for it, and I didn’t believe. So I guess… I suppose I finally allowed myself to believe it.” She paused and searched his eyes. “But I should have seen it, before all this. I was just too blind.”

A numbness had spread from his center and through his arms and legs, rendering him stunned and silent. He wanted to respond, but the thoughts he had failed him, and each word he tried to form died lifeless in his throat.

“You gave me the coin back. It did exactly what you said it would do, rolled right out of my body and into your hands,” she continued, the words coming out of her all at once with the speed of a cork popping under pressure. “That stupid fucking coin. You would have _died_ to get it back. And once you got it back you were never going to let it go again. You wouldn’t have given it up for anyone. Only you did. You gave it up for me.”

“I did,” he answered quietly, thankful to have found his voice again through the numbness. He shook his head to clear it. “I did,” he repeated, this time with assurance.

“How long have you been in love with me?”/

“You know I never actually said that…”

“Oh fuck off. It’s too late for that.”

“Fuck,” he sighed. He rubbed his hand harshly along the back of neck. “I’ve known you for a long time.” 

She frowned and angled her head. “What do you mean ‘a long time’?”

He groaned and looked upwards towards the sky, knowing it would be painful for him to admit, but even more painful for her to hear. He removed the same cigarette from behind his ear again and lit it, taking a deep drag. “Well, you… or some version of you, brought me here. To America.”

Laura closed her eyes and he watched the muscles work in her jaw. He waited for the explosion, but it never came.

“What was her name?” She asked, her voice surprisingly calm.

“Essie,” he answered. It had been a long time since he had said that name, and it felt awkward on his tongue.

“How did she, or me,” she shook her head in confusion, “or whoever the fuck it was, bring you here?”

“Like they all do… with belief.” He kicked at something invisible in the grass at his feet. “And Essie, her belief was strong. I survived here for a long time because of her. She was good to me,” he sighed. “Then it went away. Just like they all do. Hence, why we find ourselves mixed up in this fun little war. The gods are nothing without their believers. I never much cared for it.”

“You’re a god, Sweeney.”

His eyes snapped to hers. “Not anymore,” he answered sharply. He pointed his finger at her. “That was a long time ago. And I don’t want to talk about it, ok?”

She nodded, but her eyes were narrowed, and he knew that she was working it over in her mind. She wouldn’t let this go, it was too important.

“You should have told me…”

“I tried!” He scoffed. “You didn’t believe me. But believe me this, if we go down that fucking rabbit hole right now, there’s no saying when I’m coming out. _If_ I come out. We cannot talk about this right now.”

She nodded, “Ok. Maybe later, then…” She walked around him and stared out over the rolling hills leading away from the house.

“I think I might have some of her memories,” she said thoughtfully. “Essie’s. But, there’s more too. Beyond her…” She looked back at him, frustrated. “But it’s like I can’t hold on to them. The only constant is you. The memories always include you.”

“I know…” he said. “I feel it too…”

“Why didn’t you tell me about her?” she asked, her voice becoming high with frustration and hurt.

“What the fuck makes you think you would have believed me, huh? I’d been better off sticking this in my eye.” He waved the burning end of his cigarette in front of her. “You’ve been so fixated on finding your man, and repairing things. I can’t get in the way of that. It goes against my moral code. I told you that.”

She snorted and rolled her eyes.

“What?” he cried. “You think it’s been enjoyable for me? To know who you are, who you were to me, for so long and not… it’s fucking torture, is what it is. But I’m not that kinda man, the one who gets in the way. Never have been…”

She bit her lip and looked away. 

“Shit,” he continued. “I’ve watched you love and lose and die inside, over and over, and Christ, it hurts… its really fucking hard, knowing they would never ever be enough for you. And now even more, with the hunt for _fucking_ Shadow. Because for me, it wasn’t about the fucking coin anymore. I mean it was, in the beginning. But suddenly I was with you, all the fucking time. And it’s been driving me crazy… Being this close to you and…” He stopped, embarrassment rising in him and he ran his hands through his hair.

She took a step towards him, but he stepped back and turned from her. With his back to her it was like she wasn’t there, and he could admit his feelings freely knowing she couldn’t see the pain he’d been carrying with him. He closed his eyes and took a long breath.

When he spoke again, his voice was low and bare, and he let it all go, ready to show all of his cards.

“The worst things I’ve ever done weren’t the battles I ran from or the people I’ve hurt... It was being the cause of your death because I was too much of a fucking coward to stand up to the man himself. I’m a shell of who I used to be, and I fucking hate it, that’s why I hate rembering the past.” He sighed. “I can’t call myself a god anymore. I’m nowhere close to who that man was. And I don’t think I can ever forgive myself for what I did to you, but if you’ll let me, I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to make it up to you. I swear it.”

She was quiet, behind him and so he followed suit, and the low din of the party guests filled the air around them. He hung his head, waiting for doubts to creep back in.

“Sweeney... ” he heard her voice, barely above a whisper. He felt her hand on his arm and while he allowed her turn him to her, he kept his eyes down to hide the barrage of tears that threatened to fall.

“No. You have to understand. No matter how many times we’ve known each other and over however many years… “ he started, pausing to consider what he was about to say.

“What?” she implored gently, squeezing his arm. He raised his eyes to meet hers, his voice lost in his throat again.

“Say it,” she said firmly.

“You’ve always been mine, Laura. You’re never not mine,” he admitted.

He heard her sharp intake of breath, felt her grip loosen just a fraction. Her eyelashes fluttered and her gaze wavered and for a moment he thought she was going to run. The hammering of his own heartbeat filled his ears with a rush of blood.

Then her eyes cleared, and in a small voice raw with the emotions it carried, she said, “I want to remember now. Help me to remember.”

She stood on her tiptoes then, wrapping her fingers around the top of his suspenders, and pulled him down to her. Reaching up to meet him halfway, she pressed her lips lightly, hesitantly, against his.

For a moment, the world around them slowed and he felt as if they were in a room where all of the air and sound had been suddenly sucked out. His arms hung slack at his sides, his mind once again rendered useless. He had thought about kissing her, of course, and what it might feel like, but with their constant fighting and her ceaseless search for Shadow, he had begun to make himself forget it, to spare himself the pain.

But after New Orleans, he had allowed himself to believe just a little, and while they had been together, there, in the most intimate way two people can be, in a dreamy, magic fueled haze that blurred the lines of reality, this was the real moment. Crystal clear and with the breath of life spiraling around them, this is what he had been waiting for.

The feeling of her soft lips resting on his, waiting for him to make his move, her hand drifting to his waist, the scent of her perfume and something else that was entirely _her_ consumed him. It bloomed warmth through his chest and down his arms, and he came alive, circling his arms around her and pressing his fingers into the curve of her back, drawing her closer. Her hands skated up the front of his shirt to reach around his neck and push her fingers in his hair, deepening their kiss. He ran his tongue over her bottom lip, gently tugging it between his teeth.

She moaned in what sounded like a protest and he let go, and for a brief moment fear swept ice through his veins and he held his breath, waiting for her to scream or run or punch and kick and he inwardly cringed anticipating the impact.

But it never came, and her eyes, dark and full of desire, searched his and she cocked her head to the side as if she knew his fears, and she smiled that crooked, knowing smile and reached for his hand.

Then she was pulling him, and like a man possessed, he followed blindly but willingly. Across the grass to the long stone terrace, weaving through the blur of people drinking and dancing. Their eyes turned to follow them as they rushed past, but Sweeney didn’t care, he could only see Laura, glowing like a beacon guiding him through the dark. They walked swiftly through the house and as she turned them down the hallway that led to their rooms he could think of nothing else but his need to touch her again. So he stopped and spun her around, and wrapping one large arm around her waist he pulled her in and lifted her swiftly to press her against the wall.

His lips found hers again and this time their kisses were rushed and bruising, and it elicited low moans from her throat that reverberated into him, causing his heart to race wildly in his chest, and he thought that he could stand there kissing her just like this for the rest of his life.

“Room,” she managed to squeak out when his mouth abandoned hers and made its way to her neck, and the spot below her ear that he had learned would make her come undone. Taking some effort to pull away, Laura slipped around him and dragged him by the hand across the hallway and into his room. She pressed the door shut behind her back and turned the lock, and for a moment they simply looked at each other, standing slightly apart in the room lit by only a single bedside lamp, both breathing heavily, each mesmerized by the other.

He had never seen someone so beautiful, her body humming and her cheeks flushed and her hair tousled and falling across her eyes, and he knew that she wanted him, and his mind began spinning.

_How is this real?_ he thought wildly.

She pushed off the door and stepped towards him, her eyes never leaving his, even as her hands fumbled for the zipper at the side of dress. He reached out and covered her hand, surprised to find it was shaking, and he helped pull it down to her hip. She slipped the straps off her shoulders, letting the dress fall heavily to her feet, followed by the rest of her clothes.

“Are you sure?” he asked, trying desperately to keep his eyes trained on hers.

She gave him a small smile, and without answering, she closed the space between them and curled her fingers around the top of his pants, looking up coyly as she tugged his shirt loose. Her fingers worked deftly, undoing each button from the bottom up, pushing the suspenders over his broad shoulders and letting the shirt slide down his muscular arms. But when her fingers just barely grazed his zipper, he grasped her hands, pinning them in the air between them.

“What’s wrong?” She asked, startled, her brow furrowed.

“Is this real? Tell me that it’s real,” he whispered weakly, feeling his mind slipping, desperate for something real to hold on to.

Her eyes softened. She freed her hands from his and reached up to cup his face, running her thumbs over his cheeks.

“Look at me,” she insisted. “Yes. This is real,” and she pushed her lips against his, kissing him hard.

“Yes, yes, yes,” she repeated in between the kisses she peppered down his neck and chest, her hands returning to his belt and pulling it through the loops. A low moan loosened from his throat when she lowered his zipper, her fingers dancing delicately over him. His desire for her laid bare for her to see.

It was then that he allowed himself to let go. She inhaled sharply when he moved suddenly to grasp her hips, running his hands smoothly around the curve of her butt, lifting her and kissing her roughly. Her legs wrapped around his waist, fingers gripped the back of his neck and held onto his shoulders, their mouths connected, full and punishing.

He laid her on the bed, and stepped back to remove the rest of his clothes, taking a moment to appreciate her. She squirmed uneasily under his gaze, protesting at the loss of his touch and his unwavering attention.

“What?” she asked nervously, sitting up, a blush spreading quickly. He leaned down to her, placing one hand next to her on the bed and lifting the other to caress her cheek.

“You’re perfect,” he whispered, suddenly struck by the emotion coursing through him. She lifted a hand to press against his chest over his heart, and looked up to meet his gaze.

“You’re heart… it’s beating so fast,” she said breathlessly, and without another word she lifted her mouth to brush against his and he sighed into her, letting her pull him to her, kissing him as if she couldn’t get enough, as if she needed him to survive. He crawled up her body, his hands running from her waist to cover her breasts and back down to grasp her hips, pressing flush between her legs. His mouth hovered over hers, lips brushing together, and with their ragged breaths mingling together and their eyes locked, he pulled her leg up and over his hip and he entered her.

Her breath hitched, and she tilted her head back, releasing a deep sigh of relief, and he stilled, watching the sensations work their way across her face, mesmerized by the effect it had on her.

She began to move against him, and he followed, slowly at first, then spurred on by her feet digging into his legs, directing him and telling him what she needed. He wrapped his arms around her and moved faster and harder, pressing his mouth to her lips, then her shoulder and the curve of her neck. He was completely surrounded by her, her smell and her hair and the moans that curled into his ear, and his name that she whispered like a prayer that pulled a whimper from his throat.

When he felt her begin to come undone, her body fluttering around him and her moans becoming soft cries that purred languidly into his ear, begging him to meet her there, his hand grabbed for hers and he pressed it into the mattress, while the other gripped the back of her thigh, rocking into her, hitting just the right spot.

She came hard, grabbing at his back, her nails pressing half moons into his skin, but she continued to roll her hips with him, lifting her body and pushing down against him, and the sensations were too much for him, too much to hold onto, and with a low moan that pulled from the depths of his chest, he followed her, and they clung to each other, one heart beating hard against the other, as the sensations pulsed waves through their joined bodies.

“I love you,” he whispered into her ear, when his breath once again filled his lungs and the fog slowly cleared from his mind. He lifted his head to look into her drowsy eyes. He ran one rough thumb over her bottom lip, and dropped his head to kiss her, then he laid his head against her slick chest, and she wrapped her arms around him, burying her face in his tousled hair.

She didn’t say it back to him, but he hadn’t expected her to, now fully understanding her need to move at her own pace and to build her trust. Instead she wrapped her arms even tighter around him, her fingers pressed into his skin like she would never let go, and released a long, slow sigh of relief and that, he felt, was enough.


	10. Chapter 10

# Chapter 10

Laura couldn’t remember the last time she had been excited just to feel alive. And she did try to remember.

As Sweeney cradled her body under his, she closed her eyes and sifted rapidly through her mind the moments that had made up her life.

But even as she quickly stretched her mind to far before her death, before meeting Shadow and her job at the casino, long before she had been on her own in the world, even then, between all of those years of milestones, moments, and memories, she knew the search would be useless. She couldn’t remember a feeling coming anywhere close to what she was experiencing at this exact moment because it had never existed. What he was doing for her, mind, body, and soul was blindingly new.

Detachment had never been new to her. Constantly dissatisfied, she had forgotten what it felt like to simply enjoy something, anything. She had been forced to get creative in order to find that tiny bit of joy that kept her from seeking solace in the depths of the hot tub and a can of bug spray. Dangling her soul over the sheer precipice of danger and immorality gave her the fix that kept her feet walking the earth. That became the high she chased, seeing how far she could go without completely losing it all. And though it had gotten her in trouble, more times than she could count, it also kept her living on the edge of life, and she grew to appreciate never quite belonging to the land of the living, or the world of the dead.

Then she met Shadow, and through a small crack in the empty shell she called her life, she saw a shimmer. A chance to experience something genuine. Something that would carry her sadness away, as if his love were strong enough for both of them, and it would instantly take control of her empty soul and guide her to the spark.

She had tried so hard to search inside for what he felt for her, to the point where she imagined that what she felt was real. But no matter how hard she tried, and she truly did try, it stubbornly eluded and left her grasping at air. Hope abandoned her heart just as quickly as it had entered, and it left her feeling even emptier than she had been before.

Eventually she just stopped trying all together. Eventually she hurt him, like she had done to so many others so many times before, like she had always done to herself. But ultimately she knew she hadn’t really cared, finding comfort in the familiar shelter of callous indifference.

When Sweeney had come along she knew, though she chose not to admit it, that being with him would be different. There was something there, invisible to sight but still crackling in the air between them. Something that passed through her skin with the lightest of graze of his hand or in the too long gaze from across the room that she observed from the corner of her eye. And though she felt it quivering in her gut and palpitating her heart, she hadn’t been prepared for it.

Their night in New Orleans shoved it all out into the open, the Baron pulling from her what she owed, and though it had for a while rested in the shadows of her subconscious, she wasn’t prepared for it to see the light and it scared her, so she used her fear to destroy him.

That was nothing new. What was new was the suffocating guilt she felt after she did it. It hit her like a punch in the gut the minute she strode from the bar and escaped into one of the darkened alleys of the French Quarter. The weight of it crushed against her, and she sunk against the wall, burying her head in her hands as her heaving chest gasped for air.

It still hadn’t been enough to make her go back.

She had been so afraid of his love. His pure, honest, all consuming love that glittered from behind his eyes as if the sun itself were providing the light. She didn’t know how to take care of a love like that. She didn’t trust herself to protect love like that.

Then suddenly their time together felt unfairly short. She no longer had the luxury of taking her time to figure him out, to push him away and pull him back in, to enjoy the endless cycle of fighting and making up and fighting again. It was all coming to one massive end and the weight of it, like the realization of his love, pressed her into action.

She was determined to make the most of this night with him. Through him she gained her courage.

With each burning trail left in the wake of his passing touch and every fierce kiss he claimed with his lips, the fear of being incapable was pushed further from her mind, and all that was left was a hollow space that lie in wait for him to occupy, and a need for him to fill every corner of her soul.

Life coursed rapidly through her, burning her from the inside out, lighting every nerve and leaving her shaking, broken down, and waiting to be built back up. She was wildly desperate to hold on to this feeling for fear it would slip through her fingers as it had so many times before.

While he continued to move over her and within her, her hands found themselves everywhere at once, clutching at his neck and tangling her fingers in his mussed hair, gripping his shoulders, pulling him so close that every inch of her body touched his, as if he were a piece of her that had escaped and she needed to draw him back in.

The sensations were building inside of her and she knew she was coming apart, that she was close, but she wanted to hold on for as long as she could, willing the moment as far as it would go, afraid for it to end. But he saw through her internal turmoil, saw her eyes squeezed shut and forehead furrowed in painful concentration, and she felt him reach for her hand. Lacing his fingers with hers, he pressed his lips to her ear, whispering in a low, husky voice that it was ok for her to let go, and the simple, deliberate phrase was so overwhelming familiar and intimate that she did.

Fireworks burst bright flashes of light behind her eyes and she threw her head back against the pillows, rolling with the sensations that vibrated through her in powerful waves. A low whimper loosened from his throat as her body pulsed around his and she looked back at him.

He was watching her, his dark eyes fixed on her face, brow creased in wonder and incredulity, and the sight propelled her. Crossing her legs over his back, she forced him deep inside of her and eagerly rocked her hips flush with his, kissing him hard on the lips, moving to his neck and nipping at the skin. She heard him moan louder, his movements becoming more frenzied, and she licked into his ear, repeating his name, urging him to finish with her, and when he did she felt it in her core. He grasped at her, wrapping his arms around her and holding her impossibly tight. Releasing a low, shuddering sigh against her neck, he thrust his hips shakily into her until he slowed in time with the gentle kisses she pressed to the side of his face and the corner of his lips. His cheek settled next to hers, and both of them breathed heavily into the quiet air around them, their bodies humming euphorically in unison.

The breath in her lungs had barely returned when she heard him speak those three, terrifying words that had been hanging heavily over them like a cloud, but had yet to be spoken aloud. He pressed a light kiss to her parted lips, and lowered his head to rest heavily on her chest.

As if waiting in anticipation of it, hot tears sprang to her eyes, and she squeezed them shut, focusing very hard on suppressing the choking sob that had leapt into her throat.

She had expected him to say it eventually, both of them knowing there was truth to it, but it hadn’t felt real until the inflections in his voice breathed life into the words. She wanted to be able to say it back. But the part of her that feared the meaning behind the sentiment jumped at the chance to make itself known once again, and her instinct to run trembled in her muscles as if it had never left. It took control of her vulnerable mind and she choked on the words, swallowing them back into her chest, responding the only way she could.

Her arms wrapped around his head, and she buried her face into his hair, nodding an affirmation, pressing the wetness from her tears against his forehead hoping he felt it. Praying that he felt it. Because even though underneath it all her fears still held her emotions with an iron grip, this was different, this was something rare and important, and she needed him to know that she was there with him. That it may have taken her awhile, but she was there.

They lay like that for a while, wrapped in each other’s arms, and she listened to the sound of his breathing as it steadied, and felt his heart against her own return to it’s slow, methodical thrumming. When he finally slid off of her and rolled onto his back, he must have heard the weak protest that slipped past her lips because he pulled her with him, never losing his hold on her, and she tucked herself into the curve of his arm and lay her head on his shoulder, stretching her arm across his warm, broad chest. She felt his hand grip her hip protectively and it comforted her.

Neither of them spoke, and the silence of the large room crashed in, filling the air around them and bringing with it a reality that split the intimate space they had created between them.

“I don’t deserve this,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper, almost as if he had meant to say it to himself but it slipped out without him realizing.

Her hand stilled on his stomach where she had been absently tracing the lines of his muscles.

“Why would you say that?”

He paused before answering, taking a deep breath. “I’ve done so many terrible things. The most of all to you.”

“Well… so have I. To others… to myself…to you,” she said, stopping herself from saying anymore, and she felt his arm pull her in, his hand gripping her hip just a fraction tighter.

“The past is in the past,” she sighed, refusing to let the negative thoughts invade her mind. “We are not our mistakes, Sweeney.”

It was the second time she had made that statement, and she felt even more certain of it this time around.

”We have to trust each other…” she said quietly, chewing on her bottom lip. “We have to forgive each other in order to do that.” 

She heard him take a breath in and hold onto it, as if contemplating what she had said and for a brief moment she was afraid that she was losing him and her stomach fluttered anxiously. But then he pressed a kiss to the top of her head, burying his nose in her hair and inhaling deeply, and she released a sigh of relief.

Sliding her hand up, she found the freshly healed scar that split his chest. She felt him shiver involuntarily when she ran her fingers delicately down the length of it, and she paused and covered it with her palm. She pressed her forehead into him and squeezed her eyes shut, willing away the swell of emotion.

”What is it?” he asked.

“I’ve never felt this way before,” she admitted, feeling the heat rise in her cheeks. “I mean… that this is new…”

“Tell me,” he murmured, burying his face in her hair again.

“Like… what it feels like to be with someone who knows every part of you, the good parts and the really fucked up parts, and still somehow loves you.”

She felt him flex the fingers that held her firmly at the waist and with her ear to his chest she could hear the pace of his heart pick up.

The tips of her fingers resumed their light dance across the skin of his abdomen, enjoying the noises that came from his chest as they dipped lower.”

“But I guess you never saw the good parts… and I really don’t remember ever being a good person,” she mumbled, her mind drifting.

“I have seen those parts,” he said, clearing his throat. Her hand stilled. “Before we met, when I watched you… for him. You were a good person.”

She abruptly lifted herself up onto one elbow to look at him. She was finding it hard to feel annoyed at him with the intoxicating way he looked lying beneath her. His cheeks were flushed and his lips were wine red and swollen from kissing her. Strands of his messy hair hung over his forehead, and he was watching her with dark, hesitant eyes and bated breath waiting for her reaction. She bit her lip and looked away to prevent him from seeing her own blush that bloomed across her cheeks.

“Did you love me then?” she asked, still avoiding his eyes.

“Yes,” he said without hesitating, and she closed her eyes because part of her knew.

“Regardless of our past, and how many times we’ve…,” he paused, taking a deep breath. He lifted his hand to her chin and gently he turned her face to his. “You were easy to fall in love with, Laura. You always are.”

She knew the light must be glinting off the tears that had gathered in her eyes, and she inwardly swore to herself, but she didn’t look away. She couldn’t look away.

“Don’t disappear,” she whispered, sounding more desperate then she had intended, and she swallowed hard. “It’s just… I don’t want you to not be here. With me.”

The bed shifted and Sweeney sat up with her. He lifted a hand between them, sweeping her hair out of her face and holding the back of her head. His eyes burned into hers. Her heart sped up with what was quickly becoming a familiar feeling of anticipation.

“I waited for you for a long time, love. I’m not going anywhere.”

She nodded, and looked away, releasing a breath that trembled with the tears that even at the peak of her vulnerability she refused to release.

Wrapping an arm around her waist, he pulled her body onto the bed next to him. Pushing his leg between hers, he dragged her flush against his chest. He moved her leg over and around his waist, eliminating any space between them, and ran his fingers lightly up and down it, and she felt burning trails alighting once more. Then he kissed her, slowly and deeply, taking his time and lazily exploring her mouth with his tongue, working her bottom lip between his teeth until she was moaning and pushing against him and he was grinning against the lips, enjoying her restlessness.

Feeling his lips curve into a smile against her own, she pulled back sharply. He was grinning smugly at her and she narrowed her eyes at him, sliding a hand around his neck to roughly grab at a fistful of his hair. Proving once again that he knew her too well, he intercepted her hand and held it in the air between them, the fight dying in her eyes when he pushed her firmly onto her back and lowered his lips to her ear, pulling her earlobe between his teeth.

“Patience,” he chided, guiding her hands above her head and holding them there as he moved his mouth to the spot on her neck just below her ear. Her heart jumped into a gallop and the corners of her lips gave away a hint of a playful smile.

Her eyes fluttered closed as he lowered his mouth to drop kisses along her exposed neck, pausing at her breasts, then moving across her stomach. He released her hands, and they remained still on the pillows above her head, her desire to fight evaporating the lower he moved. She felt this arms curl around her legs, and when she lifted her head to look down at him, she met his dark eyes. She sucked in a deep breath, releasing it as a low moan from her chest when he lowered his head, his beard scratching the smooth skin of her inner thigh. When his mouth found the spot she was internally begging for him to find, and his fingertips dug into her thighs, her hands flew to his hair, tangling her fingers in it to hold him close to her and for the second time that night he had her rolling and breathless, her body humming and nerve endings firing.

Sweeney lifted himself back up her body, and in one smooth motion, she pulled him inside her, her body still pulsing around him with wave after wave, and he groaned. He was still at first, his eyes locked onto hers, and she reached her hands up to cradle his head and sweep her thumbs delicately across his cheeks. He closed his eyes and lowered his forehead to rest on hers.

She instinctively wrapped her legs around his waist and began to rise against him when she felt his hand on her hip stilling her, and flashing back to his eyes she knew that this time he would be in charge. This time when he made love to her, he wanted to take his time.

He was unhurried and gentle and slow, and it surprised her. Not because he was capable of it, because she had known for some time that this side of him existed. That under the cover of abrasiveness and bravado, he would know how to take his time. She had seen it in his patience and support as she dragged him across the country to save a man she thought was her destiny, willing to do anything for her even if it meant sacrificing his own happiness. She had seen glimpses of it in the depths of eyes when he stared silently at her when she shouted at him or ordered him around. The world could be exploding around them, and he would still take the time to quietly drag his eyes over her.

No, she wasn’t surprised by the depth of his emotion or the focus he placed solely on her. It was herself she was surprised by. Surprised by the reactions of her own body, a body that suddenly felt as new to her as the day she had been born. Surprised at how she could never imagine feeling bored as he leisurely explored her, touching each part of her with his hands and his fingertips, with his lips and teeth and tongue. Surprised by how much she enjoyed it, the anticipation and his adoration, trusting that he knew what she needed and that he would always give it to her.

He was teaching her to slow down. He was teaching her to find the joy.

An awakening set off flares in Laura’s body and soul as he held her tightly, his cheek pressed against her cheek, his hands running smoothly up and down her body, a blend of feather light and firm, moving all around her and within her. It was an introduction to something she had never experienced before, but that felt inexplicably like home.

After, she lay with her back to him, her eyes drowsy, her body spent and exhaustion overtaking her like a warm blanket. She felt his rough hand glide around her and pull her smoothly to his chest. He pulled the sheets over them, and draped his arm around her waist, curling his large body protectively around her, and she felt the pulse of his heart beating through her back. A murmur, something low and hushed in a language she didn’t understand but that felt vaguely familiar, flowed into her ear, but all she could make out was the tail end, the three familiar words he had said to her earlier.

“I love you, Laura.”

This time the words didn’t scare her. They embraced her. And she pushed back into him, pulling his hand up to kiss his palm, his lips resting at the curve of her neck. Finally feeling safe and protected and loved for who she was, and not who she had pretended to be, Laura closed her eyes and slept.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello :) 
> 
> I had to split Ch. 11 because it was way too long, so Ch. 12 will be posted by the end of the week. It's nearly done. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!! 
> 
> xx

# Chapter 11

A large opening split the heavy velvet curtains that hung over the windows in Sweeney’s bedroom, and through it the dusky morning light streamed in and over his closed eyes.

He wrinkled his brow and frowned, opening one tired eye into a squint that allowed a sliver of light in, temporarily blinding him. He snapped it shut and groaned.

“Fuck,” he breathed, his voice coming out low and gravely. He rubbed his closed eyes with his free hand. The other was pinned beneath Laura, who despite the sunlight edging over her, remained deep in sleep.

He turned carefully onto his side to face her, savoring her stillness as she slept contentedly and listening to her soft, nearly soundless breathing. The sun, though low on the horizon, was bright enough to set her exposed skin afire. It surrounded her in a hazy golden aura, and the image alone felt so dreamy and romantic that his heart sped up and butterflies alighted in his stomach.

_Butterflies. What had she done to him?_

But he wasn’t used to seeing her like this, and the suddenness of it all, after what felt like a lifetime of painfully waiting and watching, was a shock to his hardened system. He just wanted to touch her, to run his fingers through her hair and over her smooth, pale skin just to check that she was actually there, and not a manifestation of his untrustworthy mind.

His hand lifted to hover over her shoulder, and the warmth from her body radiated into him. His mind instantly flashed back to the night, and how warm she felt when she lay beneath him, her hands running up and down his back, leaving heated trails in their wake.

She was as real then as she was now, she had to be, and as the fog of sleep lifted and his mind cleared he also remembered… he remembered... saying it. _I love you_. Twice.

He drew his hand back and pressed it over his eyes, groaning inwardly. A quick rush of anxiety killed the butterflies and swelled from his stomach and into his chest. His heartbeat rapidly sped up. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d said those words. It had to have been hundreds, if not thousands of years. A lifetime ago, when he was different. When he had been open and trusting and worthy of love. When he wasn’t _this_.

He felt like he hadn't been any of those things in a such a long time that his ability use the phrase and actually mean it, was dead and gone forever. He hadn't earned the right. He was never going to be good enough. Not for anyone. Especially not for her.

Except for last night, when his world suddenly shifted clear off of its axis. She had made him feel worthy and needed... and _loved_. The words had returned as quickly and quietly as he had tried to forget them, and they flowed from his lips without his proper consent, as if it were as natural as breathing, in and out, in and out. As if he had been saying them to her, and only her, every hour of every day for years upon years.

But it had been so long since he had let go of his facade to show someone his soul, his real and raw and vulnerable soul. And though saying it had seemingly loosened the heavy burden he had carried with him for centuries, his old, deep seated habits to protect himself surged forward, making him question his reality, and the thoughts boiled in his mind.

_Did I imagine it? I couldn’t have actually said it… I shouldn’t have said it. I mean, it was implied right? Then she must have expected it, and it wouldn’t have been a surprise and I shouldn’t feel like a fucking idiot._

_But… did I expect her to say it back? Or didn’t I? If she didn’t did that mean...she didn’t?_

Laura shifted in her sleep, inhaling deeply before settling back into the rhythm of her slow, steady breath. Her chest rose and fell and the sun caught each fleck of light in her skin. The voices of doubt in his mind quieted, except for one solitary thought.

_She looks so beautiful, the way the light hits…_

Then he remembered.

He remembered how in the middle of the night, long after they had both fallen asleep curled protectively around each other, she had stirred next to him, and silently reached for him. She had delicately used her fingers and her lips to wake him slowly and wordlessly tell him that she needed him. And as if he were under a spell or locked in some hazy dream, he willingly obliged, and the memories that now rose in his once restless mind began to quell his fears and ease his apprehension.

She had been radiant then too, he remembered, but in a different way, as if she were glowing from the inside out, a source of light all her own nestled deep within her that had been beckoned to the surface by the pull of the full blue moon that hung low outside his window. He remembered the way it crawled up and over her skin and hugged her smooth curves when she rose and fell above him. How it caught in the strands of her hair and poured over the delicate bend in her neck when closed her eyes and she threw her head back.

Smoothly running her hands over his chest and around his neck, she pulled him up to meet her, eager to bring him closer. Eye to eye he matched her gaze that carried more meaning than either of them were comfortable expressing. He has been struck by the light that glistened within hers, exposing to him her naked vulnerability and absolute trust that he knew was undeniably reflected in his own, in a way that only nighttime’s intimacy can draw.

She didn't have to say it. Her eyes had said it all.

When they came down from their shared high, he collapsed onto the bed and pulled her exhausted body with him, her chest flush to his chest, her head tucked under his chin. He nuzzled her hair and ran his hands languidly over her, caressing her back to sleep as the kisses she pressed to his neck slowed until they stilled.

With each vivid moment that replayed in his mind the beat of his heart quickened. She was here with him. She was here. He knew for certain that it was real, but in order to chase all doubt away, he needed to touch her to make it so.

He ran his hands over her hip and trailed soft, drawn out kisses from the smooth slope of her back to the nape of her neck. Moving to her ear, he lingered where she was the weakest, and he smiled against her skin when he felt her body stir with a sudden intake of breath. His rough hand skimmed down her naked side, tightening his grip at her thigh before sliding back up to hold her firmly against him, his fingers splayed across the center of her chest.

Awake now, she reached for him, burying her fingers in his hair, holding firmly to the back of his head and exposing the length of her throat to him. He leaned forward and nipped at it gently with blunt teeth. She pushed back to grind herself against him and the sudden sensation pulled a low moan from his throat.

His name slipped past her lips, coming out breathless and desperate, begging him to touch her where she needed him to, and he obliged, sliding his hand down slowly over her stomach to dip between her legs.

“Oh god,” she cried, letting out a low hum and arching against him and he sped up his touch, watching her reactions in awe, her lips parted and brow creased with her longing, anticipating his next move.

A knock sounded from the door, so low he almost thought he imagined it, and her hand flew to his, stilling him. Suddenly frozen, they listened, and for a moment it was only her shallow breathing and the rushing sound of his blood that filled his ears. Then the knock sounded again, and this time followed by Sweeney’s name.

“Fuck,” Sweeney sighed in frustration, lowering his forehead to her shoulder.

The knock sounded again, louder and more insistent.

“Alright!,” he growled. “I’m coming, for fuck’s sake."

He gently pulled away and begrudgingly rolled off of the bed, grumbling to himself as he snatched his pants from the pile of clothes on the floor. Pulling them hastily over his hips, he moved to the door.

“Wait!” Laura cried, pulling the sheets up and over her head and lying flat and very still. “Ok, go ahead,” she whispered.

Sweeney rolled his eyes. He pulled the door open just a crack and peered out.

It was one of those annoyingly handsome servants, requesting their presence in the dining room as soon as possible. Sweeney hurriedly OK’d him and pressed the door shut. He turned back to the form under the sheets, shaking his head.

“What? You think they don’t know you're in here, love? After last night? Or… now?”

When she peeked her head out from under the sheets, she was blushing furiously and frowning at him. She gave him a small shrug.

“We’ve gotta get the fuck outta this house,” he complained, rubbing his hands roughly over his face. "I can't live like this."

“Not yet, though,” she said quietly, and he looked back at her.

She had sat up, letting the sheet slip down to her waist, leaving her pale skin exposed and once again glowing in the sunlight. He swallowed hard.

”You’re gonna have to finish what you started,” she said shyly but firmly, her hair falling across her dark eyes and a pink flush still painting her pale cheeks. She looked so beautiful that he inhaled sharply, suppressing a whimper that had moved into his throat.

“What?” she asked with faux innocence, peering at him from under her lashes.

“Nothing. I’ll just never get tired of looking at you, is all.” he said quietly, his eyes raking over her exposed body.

A slow, crooked smile pulled at her lips.

Heart racing, he stepped towards the bed and she pushed up onto her knees to meet him, her hands finding the edge of his pants hanging low on his hips, pushing them down. He reached for her, one hand tightly gripping her waist while the other tangled in her long hair to hold the back of her head and tilt it towards him, and he kissed her passionately, letting all of his built up desire out on her tender lips as she pulled him onto the bed on top of her.


	12. Chapter 12

# Chapter 12

Sometime later they found themselves standing outside of Ostara’s dining room. He placed his hand on the door knob and before turning it, stole one last look at her.

She was hastily combing her fingers through her tousled hair and pouting her lips, red and swollen from kissing.

 _From his kisses_ , he thought, his eyes lingering on them. He felt a familiar stirring within him, and suppressed a moan from escaping his throat. It was taking him an enormous amount of self control to not grab her around the waist and press her firmly against the wall so he could have his way with her.

Her hand stilled in her hair, and she raised her face to his. A blush had spread on her cheeks as if she knew what he was thinking.

“Open the door, dummy,” she said with a smirk.

He pulled the door open. She brushed past him, running her hand over his crotch as she went, and he sucked in a breath, releasing it as a long, frustrated sigh as he followed her in.

“Finally!” Ostara exclaimed shrilly when they entered, causing Sweeney to wince.

She placed her tea cup onto the delicate saucer, leaned back in her chair and set her hands on the wooden arms. She was positioned at the head of the long table adorned with glass vases of fresh cut flowers and golden candelabras with tall white candles that emitted a soft glow. Bilquis, in her stunningly effervescent glory, sat to Ostara’s right. Her dark eyes followed Laura as she stepped towards them, the corner of her lips giving way to shadow of a smile.

She must have sensed Sweeney’s intense gaze focused on her as she watched Laura, and her eyes darted to his. For a moment they stared, challenging one another, two very different gods invested in the same mortal, one determined to protect her while the other prepared her for war.

“It’s very rude to keep me waiting in my own home,” Ostara bristled, breaking the spell between Bilquis and Sweeney. He turned to her, and her eyebrows raised, her neatly manicured nails tapping on the arm of her chair.

”Ya, sorry about that,” Laura mumbled, stealing a glance at Sweeney. She took a seat in the chair next to Ostara. When Sweeney didn’t follow, she cleared her throat noiselly and stared daggers at him. He rolled his eyes and sat heavily in the chair next to her.

“Oh, it’s ok, dear. I was in love once...” Ostara mused, pausing to consider it, her eyes drifting to the ceiling dreamily.

“Or was it… yes, it was hundreds of many times before, but who’s counting?” she continued with a laugh, waving her hand dismissively.

“I do have to say though,” she continued. “I’m deeply intrigued by this new development.” She reached for her teacup, gazing at them over the rim as she took a slow sip.

Next to him, Laura stiffened, drawing her hands from the table and wringing them in her lap.

“Tell me, does that sweet, sweet boy know?”

Laura’s mouth dropped open. She stammered, making a weak attempt to respond, but when no words could come out, her head swiveled to Sweeney. Without taking his eyes off of Ostara, he reached under the table to settle her hands, pulling one into his own.

“Nothing for him to know,” he said shrugging casually, eyes flitting to Laura.

Ostara and Bilquis shared a mischievous smirk, Bilquis’ eyes darting between Laura and Sweeney, before settling on his. As it always was when he was in the presence of the perceptive goddess, she looked right through him, and Sweeney instantly felt exposed and vulnerable. He cleared his throat, anxiety and anger rising within him.

“It’s none of ya business, either of you!” he snapped. The goddesses dropped their smiles, simultaneously narrowing their eyes at him.

”You have us, now what do you want?” He was eager to get it over with.

“Great party though, right?” Ostara said, grinning again and ignoring his moodiness.

“Fuck your fucking party. Why are we here?”

“Sweeney,” Laura warned him under her breath.

“No worries, I’m used to him,” she said, shooting him a pointed look. “You would think you would be in a better mood after last night, though.”

Sweeney sucked in a breath and snapped his dark eyes to hers, daring her to say another word. Ostara smirked, her eyes glinting dangerously. A silent truce passed between the two of them, and she nodded imperceptibly, turning back to Laura. Sweeney released the breath he had been holding.

“Back to business then, shall we?” She cleared her throat. “He knows you are alive again, Ms. Moon, but what he doesn’t know is that you still have your strength.” Ostara’s eyes flitted to Bilquis, who watched Laura curiously.

“And you,” she continued, turning to Sweeney. “He knows you have returned and he wants that spear back. You should never have taken it”

“Well, I didn’t exactly intend on coming back, did I?

“There’s something you should know. That night, in Cairo,” Bilquis said, finally breaking her silence, setting her powerful gaze on Sweeney. “He wanted you to die. He had planned it all along.”

“What are you talking about?” Laura asked.

“The ravens saw it all, flying high above the road. A dead woman, a wounded leprechaun, and a glittering gold coin. From the moment that you allowed her to live again, he watched you very closely. He knew he’d lost you to her, that you would never kill her, that you would join her crusade against him. He used your increasing bond to his advantage. He isolated you. He made you feel unwanted. He wanted you weak and he wanted you out of the way. He wanted to anger you, make you feel as if you had no other choice. Kill Laura Moon or be killed. We all know which decision you made.”

Laura drew in a deep breath and looked down at her hands in her lap.

“He believes Laura Moon is weak without you, because while you are by her side, you strengthen her, and she strengthens you. He fears you both more than he lets on. Together you bring light to the darkness, and together you can expose him for the monster that he truly is. Together you can destroy him.”

“Then we’ll kill him together,” Sweeney said gruffly, his fists clenched.

“Laura must be the one to kill Odín,” Bilquis said frankly.

“Fuck that, she’s not doing it.”

“I wasn’t asking for your permission,” she said sharply, her eyes flashing angrily.

“I don’t care. You can fucking forget it. We kill that bastard together.”

He moved to stand and reached his hand to pull Laura with him, but he felt pressure holding him to the chair. She had placed a hand firmly on his knee under the table and he stilled. He looked at her, but she avoided his eyes.

“I’ll do it.”

He grinded his teeth painfully and dropped his eyes to the table.

Bilquis nodded appreciatively at Laura, her lips curling into an smile. She looked back to Sweeney, her smile fading.

“And who will you be in this, when you are needed the most?” she asked him. Sweeney felt something in his chest pulse and constrict.

“As I recall, you seem to know who I am. So tell me, which one do you see here?”

“The great king, the golden god… I see neither. This isn’t who you are meant to be. So tell me, when will you embrace your origin?”

“I’m not any of those things anymore,” he growled, avoiding Laura’s worried gaze.

“You have to be,” Ostara chimed in, cracks in her composure beginning to form. “I told you I would only bring you back if you took your place beside us and be who you are meant to me.”

“I made no fucking promises!” he shouted, too loudly. He stood abruptly and his chair flew back, clattering to the marble floor. Ostara jumped and her hand flew to her chest and Bilquis’ narrowed eyes immediately softened into an awe.

“How dare _you_ tell _me_ what I am! I know who I am, and I know what I’ve done, and I know what I can fucking do! I’ve had men begging for their lives even as their heads slipped from their necks, killed so quickly they didn’t realize they were already dead. I have taken hundreds of thousands of lives before you were a spark in your believer’s eyes, _Ostara_ of the fucking dawn. I know what I could bring to this war, make no question of it.”

“There he is,” Bilquis mused, her eyes shining.

Sweeney, heart pounding and breathing heavily, stumbled internally as if awakening from a black out. He looked to Laura, whose eyes were wide with a mix of fear and wonder. The energy in the room had shifted dramatically.

He had felt it, what Bilquis had seen when she looked into his eyes. With his sudden outburst, the warmth of the sun flared rapidly in his chest, and the fiery power spread quickly from his center to the top of his head and bottom of his feet. It was a strength he hadn’t felt in hundreds of years, one that brought with it memories he had spent most of his life in American trying to forget. A strength he thought he had destroyed forever, never to be reclaimed. Tears gathered in his eyes, catching the last of the golden glow as it pulled back into the recesses of his shadowy mind.

“Sweeney,” Laura said gently, reaching to touch his hand. He pulled away, turning to walk towards the large windows at the end of the dining room. Laura pursed her lips and watched him, her features hardening.

“Where is he?” she asked adamantly, turning back to the stunned goddesses.

“Well,” Ostara said, clearing her throat and keeping a wary eye on Sweeney. “That’s the thing. We don’t exactly know.”

“But there is someone who might,” Bilquis added. She too had been eyeing Sweeney, but slowly turned her attention back to Laura. “I think you know who.”

“Shadow,” Laura said quietly.

“Find Shadow Moon, find Odin,” Bilquis breathed.

He had heard enough. He slammed the door on his way out.

\----------------------------------------------------

“I don’t fucking like this.”

The minute they returned to the room he had begun angrily pacing.

“What the fuck was that all about?”

“Which part?” he asked, letting out a wild laugh, continuing to storm around the room.

“I dunno, maybe the part when you stomped out of the room and slammed the fucking door just because you heard Shadow’s name. I hope you know you look like a jealous fucking baby when you act like that.”

“I’m not fucking jealous!”

“Right,” Laura snorted.

“I’m fucking not!

She narrowed her eyes at him, and he reeled back, astounded by what he was hearing. “Are you fucking serious right now?! _This_ is your biggest concern from that fun little get together?”

She pursed her lips and didn’t respond. He laughed sharply at her, knowing that would strike a nerve.

”How I feel about your _husband_ does not fucking matter right now.”

Hurt flashed in her eyes and she went to speak, but he cut her off harshly. “You want to know what matters? What matters is the two you just struck up a deal with. How do we know they’re not gonna fuck us, huh?”

“Because they won’t. I trust them.”

“How can you even say that? You’ve been around their type long enough to know what they’re like. They’re all the fucking same, selfish, self-serving cunts.”

She crossed her arms over her chest and the glint he saw sparkling in her eyes told him that she was ready to fight, that she was about to destroy him, and the old part of him, the one before all this, bristled with excitement at the prospect. But the new part, the part that loved her, cherished her and worshipped her, swirled with anxiety. He was torn straight down the middle. He sucked in his breath and waited for the onslaught.

She chuckled and took a small step towards him. “Wait, don’t you mean _your_ type? Because from what I understand, you _are_ one of them. One who has, on certain occasions, been exactly what you say they are. A selfish, self-serving _cunt_. Do you want to talk about that then, Sweeney? About being a fucking god? About how you just scared the shit out of two fucking powerful goddesses? How about we talk about that.”

“They’re not that powerful,” he scoffed, waving her off and looking away, a poor attempt to hide his racing heart and the hot flush it brought with it. He hated that she was right. The thought of punching a hole through one of the walls crossed his mind and he tightened his fist in anticipation. That would really piss Ostara off.

”That wasn’t the fucking point,” she continued, refusing to let him go. “I need you to own up to that if we’re gonna win. You’re a god.”

“Oh, so you think you know me, aye? You think I just turn it on, like a fucking light switch? I got news for you wife, that’s not how it fucking works.”

She ignored him, taking a step closer and stared straight through him and he turned his back to her.

“You’re. A. God,” she repeated behind him, her tone measured and stern.

“Am I?” He asked bitterly, spinning around to face her again, his eyes wild and full of frustration and confusion and anger. He felt the power surge through him once again, like the heat of the sun were exploding from his skin and his mind, the scent of blood invading his senses and the screams of men filling his ears.

He groaned in pain and covered them, trying to block out the rising noise and the feeling that he was losing control, and she must have sensed it because she faltered, ever so slightly, and took a step back. His head buzzed with static electricity, and he took several deep, shuddering breaths to calm himself.

“I can’t,” he finally said, lowering his hands from his head, his voice thick with emotion. “I can’t, Laura. Not right now.”

”Can you feel it?” she asked carefully, her eyes wide with wonder and concern.

He nodded faintly and looked away.

“But it doesn’t just come back, you know. There’s more to it. I need someone to believe in me, the more the merrier. But one’ll do it for a bit…”

“I believe in you,” she said hopefully.

He smiled sadly at her. “No, you don’t.”

She frowned. “How can you say that?”

“Because I’m the one feeding off of it, love. And it’s not…you don’t…” He saw her eyes begin to water as tears gather in the corners.

He swallowed, leaving the thought unfinished. She hastily wiped the tears away that he knew she didn’t want him to see.

“Look, it’s just… it’s hard to trust them, any of them. They say one thing and they mean another. They play with lives, especially human lives. And it’s your life they’re playing with now.”

“Do you trust me?”

He didn’t answer.

She stepped back towards him, craning her neck to look firmly into his eyes.

“I asked you a question. Do you trust me?”

 _How_ , he wondered, _could this tiny human, knowing deep down who he really was, having seen the danger he posed to her and others, meet his fiery gaze every time, and challenge him when two powerful gods could not?_

He could be stronger than Odin himself and she could still grab him by the collar and force him onto his knees at her feet. She owned him.

“Jesus,” he muttered, running his hand roughly through his hair and turning away from her.

“Well?”

“Yes.” He closed his eyes, taking several long, deep breaths, and like a wave pulling sand from the shoreline, the frustration pulled from his mind, leaving it empty, quiet, and blessedly alone.

He dropped himself into an armchair by the window, leaned his head back and shut his eyes.

“What did you think was going to happen,” she asked softly. “You knew my plan all along. You agreed to be apart of it. You agreed to help me.”

“Ya, well… that was before,” he sighed, massaging his forehead, his eyes remaining closed.

“Before what?” She asked hesitantly, as if she already knew the answer. She had to know the answer.

“Do I have to fucking spell it out for you?” he asked sharply, sitting up and looking into her eyes. She flinched. “Christ, wife, you can be so fucking daft sometimes!”

She was quiet for a moment before responding, and he could almost hear the thoughts working over her mind, searching for the most delicate way to remind him of their purpose.

“You had to have known the risks, Sweeney,” she finally said quietly.

“Ya...” He sniffed and nodded.

His voice, devoid of emotion, sounded hollow to his own ears. Resting his arms on his knees, he dropped his head to stare at the floor. They had been together, for real together, for no more than a day. Less than an hour ago his body had been tangled with hers, his lips fused to her lips, his hands gripping her hips tighter and tighter the faster she moved above him. Less than an hour ago he had told her for the third time that he loved her.

Now they were off to find her husband, whatever that would mean, and then the man who could potentially kill her. He had forgotten the purpose, he had let himself get carried away. A sour taste rose in his throat.

The sound of his foot tapping anxiously was muffled by the plush carpet, as was the sound of her feet stepping lightly towards him.

The feel of her fingers threading through his hair stilled him. She combed them through gently, calming him, her fingertips deftly separating the knotted strands and smoothing them back and off his face. She stepped into him, and he instinctively pressed his forehead against her flat stomach. He ran his hands up the smooth skin on the back of her legs, reaching to wrap them around her thin waist, hugging her to him. He sighed into her. A feeling that he had done this with her many, many times before flickered through his mind. It was gone before he could catch it, but it left him with a deep understanding that she was his sanctuary.

“I fucking hate this,” he sighed weakly. “I fucking hate him and I fucking hate this.”

He didn’t know who he was talking about, if it were Shadow or Wednesday, but it didn’t matter. It all felt the same.

“I know,” she said, her hands still working through his hair.

“I won’t let you go alone, so don’t you dare ask me to,” he mumbled against her, pressing his lips to her stomach through the thin fabric of her dress.

“I know,” she said again, taking his face in her hands and turning him to look up at her. “But I need you to let me do it. This is what I’m here for.”

He pursed his lips and nodded dully. He was being difficult and he knew it, but he didn’t care. She leaned down and pressed a kiss on his lips.

The argument he wanted to have and the frustration his wished to vent still burning in his chest, but he swallowed it down, for now, at least. Instead he buried his face back into her dress and gripped her waist tighter.

“I don’t know how to do this,” she said tentatively.

“Neither do I… but we’ll figure it out.”

“You scare the shit out of me,” she admitted, her hands stilling in his hair and her body stiffening. “And it isn’t because you’re a god. It’s this… It’s so real. I just never...”

She paused, and he released her and leaned back so he could see her face. She was chewing on her bottom lip and her wide, uncertain eyes made no effort to hide her fragility. She had never been good at being honest and she was an expert at masking her feelings, so for her to admit her fears so openly, in the brightness of the day when he could see it all, spoke volumes.

He had made the mistake of leaving her hanging out in the open before, in a beautiful garden alone and exposed by the light of her truth, and even though it had been their shared truth and he could have eased her pain by joining the admission, he hadn’t. His simple act of defiance, one that he had become so accustomed to with her, had destroyed a small, fragile piece of her. He didn’t want to make that mistake again.

“You scare the shit out of me, too,” he said, adding, “But I’m more scared of losing you. I don’t think I could survive that.”

She nodded, relief instantly crossing her face, along with something else, something that she didn’t always allow to be seen, but she pushed herself onto his lap before he had a chance to really see it. He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her into him, and buried his face into her neck and sighed.

She smelled heavenly, like green grass and fresh air and the salt of the sea, a scent that he was beginning to learn belonged solely to her. A scent that reminded him of the past and his home and the flowering fields of primrose that would release their intoxicating aroma when he strolled through them. He felt his mind drifting, rushing him into the past, and he squeezed his eyes shut, focusing on the moment and the feel of her in his arms to help keep him grounded.

“I’m not going anywhere,” she murmured. “I don’t plan on losing. Trust me.”

He could only manage to hold her closer. He wanted to believe her. He wanted so badly to believe that it would all work out, that she could survive this, but a knot that had formed in the center of his chest told him otherwise.

He pushed it all away, for now at least. He was tired of worrying, and they still had a long way to go before the end. _The end._ He sighed.

“You’re real fucking tough, wife,” he said, allowing himself a small smile when he felt her grin against his neck.


	13. Chapter 13

# Chapter 13

Sweeney didn’t waste any time getting them out of Ostara’s mansion.

Once they had their orders which, much to Laura’s chagrin, he had started to refer to them as, he grabbed her, the few things they had brought with them, and hustled them towards the front door.

Laura dragged her feet and grumbled as she followed behind him, something about getting one more night in a real bed, but he ignored her, and gripping her hand harder, he pushed through the front door and stepped outside into the cool afternoon air.

Immediately he came to a halt.

“Leaving without saying goodbye? Is that how you treat my hospitality?”

“Fuck,” he muttered under his breath, unceremoniously dropping their belongings to the ground. Laura skirted around him.

“Where’s the fucking truck?” He shouted, throwing his hands up in exasperation.

“Oh, that old thing? You won’t be able to drive that where you’re going. You’ll never make it through the snow.”

“Snow?” Laura asked, scrunching up her nose.

“Fuck,” he sighed.

As if summoned, a small black SUV, driven by one of Ostara’s servants, pulled around to the front of the house.

Laura grinned appreciatively. Sweeney rolled his eyes.

“It’s not my best, but it’s not my worst,” Ostara mused, watching as the car pulled to a stop at the bottom of the marble stairs.

“Right. It’ll do.” Sweeney nodded to her and stepped towards the car.

Laura frowned and shot Ostara and apologetic look.

“Sorry. I think he meant to say thank you…”

“Oh, please, don’t worry about him,” Ostara scoffed, waving him off dismissively. She turned to Laura, and placed a hand lightly on each shoulder.

“Now, you on the other hand…”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Well, this will be a little different, Mrs. Moon.”

“Well, I think I can handle myself.” She gave Ostara a tight smile, struggling to remain polite.

Ostara narrowed her eyes and squeezed Laura’s shoulders. She gave her a hard look, staring through her as if she was studying something miles behind Laura’s eyes. Laura’s smile slipped from her face and her eyebrows knitted together.

She was so quiet and still that Laura considered lifting her hand and waving it in front of her face. But within a minute she was back, and she looked at Laura with such genuine sadness pooling in her eyes that her chest constricted anxiously.

She placed a cool hand on each side of her solemn face and held it gently in her hands.

“You can be as self-reliant and determined as you want, Mrs. Moon, that’s your right and you’ve earned it. But what you’ve seen and done in these few short weeks is child’s play compared to what you’re up against. Don’t be a fool, do you understand me?”

Laura, wide eyed and pale, nodded solemnly.

“Good. Now listen to me. You’re going to need him. As a god, not this… whatever he is that we see in front of us. But in order to do that you gotta let go of whatever haunting you, honey, because you can’t lose him. He must become who he’s meant to be. He has to be there for you, at the end of all this. You’re… going to want him there.”

“I… ” Laura murmured dully, her voice distant and her mind foggy. She understood, but at the same time, she didn’t. She knew that Ostara wasn’t telling her the whole truth, but she didn’t ask because part of her already knew what was fated for her, and it wasn’t something she was ready to think about.

When she turned to look back at Sweeney perched on the hood of Ostara’s car, concentrating on the cigarette he was rolling on his knee, cursing as his too big hands fumbled with the tobacco, her heart constricted painfully. The less she knew about her future, the better. For both of them.

“I’m sure you know how it works, sweets. He’s gonna need a believer, a real one, and honey, you’re the only candidate I see for miles.”

“I feel like I could…” Laura mumbled, her eyes trained on Sweeney as he climbed into the car.

“But you don’t. Despite all you’ve seen through those pretty brown eyes, you’re still struggling to let go. Don’t lie to yourself. The time for that is over.”

Laura turned quickly back to Ostara. She considered arguing with her, the denial swelling in her throat, choking her. Ostara raised an eyebrow, daring her. She sighed in defeat. 

“How will I know when I…” Believe. She was trying to say believe. But even saying the word was difficult.

“Oh, you’ll know,” Ostara responded with a wink.

She looked back at Sweeney. He was sitting in the driver’s seat waving his hand for her to hurry up.

“Let’s fucking go!”

“Asshole,” she mumbled, shaking her head.

“You want me to believe in that?”

Ostara shrugged. “We all have our crosses to bear. Now off you go!”

Laura opened her mouth to argue, but Ostara had already turned her around and was pushing her towards the running car.

As Sweeney pulled down the long driveway, she kept her eyes on her passenger mirror, watching Ostara and the small group of white and black bunnies that had gathered at her feet fade into the distance.

“What did she have to say?” he asked, taking his eyes off the road to look at her.

Ostara’s words rang in her ears. The time for lying was over. But when she turned to him and met his honest, trusting eyes, she knew that sometimes it was ok to lie.

“Nothing too important,” she said casually, flashing him a reassuring smile.

He nodded, seemingly satisfied, and turned back to the road, missing the smile as it slipped from her face, and her eyes lingering on him longer than they should have.

\---------------------------------------------------

On the first day of their drive to find Shadow Moon they barely made it out of the state. They couldn’t keep their hands off of each other.

The second day they didn’t get much farther.

In all honesty, they really didn't have that far to go, and if they wanted to, they could have made it to northern Wisconsin in a day’s time.

But once they were outside the prying eyes of Ostara and Bilquis and the confined walls of the mansion, they realized it was just them. Alone. No one watching them, wondering, or whispering. They could do whatever they wanted with their new found feelings and their desire to explore every inch of each other. And so they did.

On desolate roads that cut through endless fields, while he rambled on about some random piece of information that he insisted she needed to listen to, she mischievously quirked her lips and watched him from under her lashes as her hands worked under her dress, sliding her underwear slowly to the floor.

Suddenly what he had to say wasn’t so important anymore.

Her legs would be over his lap before he had a chance to pull over, her lips on his neck and her hands between them working his belt as he shifted the car into park, her back pressed hard against the steering wheel, hands clutching at the back of his neck as he slid his hands up her thighs and under her dress, pressing his fingertips into the bare skin of her hips, supporting her as she guided him into her, letting her control the pace and intensity.

Other times, as the miles of dusty backroads rumbled beneath the car, he would absently run the tips of his fingertips lightly up and down the back of her neck until her eyes fluttered closed and her breath pick up.

He would toss his cigarette out the window and bring the car to a stop at the edge of a field or by the cover of woods. They would find their way to the backseat, his too large body comically squeezed into the tight space, big hands fumbling impatiently at the tiny buttons of her flimsy dress, while she wrapped her legs around him and pulled his shirt smoothly over his head, her lips pressed against his ear, moaning his name and all the things he was making her feel.

His eyes would roll back and flutter closed and he would breathily curse into her hair and insist that she was going to be the death of him.

It had been a few minutes after their latest tryst and his heart was only just returning to its regular rhythm when she turned to him, the setting sun catching the gold flecks in her eyes and intensifying the rosy afterglow staining her cheeks and he felt his heart pounding once again.

“Do you believe in soul mates?”

The question was sudden and unexpected, and in the seconds before he was able to hide it he knew she must have seen it, the shock that flashed across his eyes and the confusion that creased his forehead.

“Yes,” he blurted out, instantly turning away, avoiding her searching eyes. He busied himself in his seat, adjusting the steering wheel, the mirrors, checking out the long, empty road ahead of them. Anything to keep him from her gaze that wouldn’t let go.

He held his breath, afraid of what he would hear, remembering all too well their last exchange about her beliefs. He knew what he expected. Her sharp, condescending laugh, the harsh, judgmental eyes, and the lecture about how soulmates weren’t real, that they were just a construct of hopeless romantics who were desperate enough to hold onto something so absurd and pathetic. That she didn’t believe and couldn’t understand why anyone would ever…

I think you might be mine.”

The confession tumbled from her lips fast and all at once, as if the quicker she said it the less impact it would have, and they could subsequently acknowledge it and move on.

What she’d failed to realize was that it didn’t matter how fast she’d said it. He was waiting for her to speak, and when she did he was already hanging on every word she said.

And he’d heard it all, and felt the significance of each syllable like a shot to the chest. Such a revelation changed everything. It changed him, and her, and them. He knew it, and by the look on her face, she knew it too.

She chewed on her bottom lip anxiously and her wide, clear eyes looked both at him and through him. They glistened with emotions swimming just below the surface, raw and vulnerable, waiting apprehensively for him to respond.

Something passed between them then, invisible to the naked eye, but powerful enough to transcend the time and space in the suddenly too small car, and he inwardly stumbled from the onslaught of long forgotten memories that flashed through his mind, rapidly piecing together to fill the holes in their history, and as they crossed his mind, he saw her through it all, saw the tears build in the corners of her eyes, and he knew that she was seeing the same, overwhelming thing.

But the longer they sat in stunned silence while the fractured memories of their past lives swirling around them, her insecurities, like clockwork, rushed to the surface. The tears that had pooled in her eyes, clung precariously to her lower lashes as she fought to maintain the last semblance of her control.

He suddenly felt the urge to push her to let it go, to make her feel it, to break that last stubborn wall between them. The one that had proven to be the hardest and the strongest and the most impossible to crack because it asked the most from her. It asked her to be seen for who she really was, not who she pretended to be.

“Laura, it’s ok to let go…” he started, ignoring the voice of reason in his mind and the screech of the warning bells telling him to retreat. He reached his hand to her cheek.

But he misjudged her readiness. His tone was too gentle, the gesture too sudden, and it broke the delicate bubble that had enveloped them, and realization flew back into her eyes. She blinked and looked away, hurriedly pushing her sunglasses on, and began to chew on her nails nervously.

Fuck, he thought. He slowly drew back his hand.

She had turned her body almost completely from him. Her shoulders curved in protectively and her gaze fixed on some distant point on the horizon.

A scarlet flush appeared from under her glasses and spread quickly across her cheeks and he felt a pang of regret and an overwhelming need to reach out and make it ok.

“Hey, look at me,” he said, reaching out to take hold of her chin and turn her face to his. His body stiffened in anticipation of her reaction, but instead of lashing out she let him guide her back, and even though it was small, he knew that it was progress.

He gave her a small smile, and she pursed her lips in a move that he knew to be a weak attempt at holding her indifference.

“Are you starting to believe in something then, wife?” He asked teasingly, taking them back to a place where they were familiar.

“Fuck off…” she said with more bark than bite, her voice low and stuffy. “And stop calling me that. I’m no one’s fucking wife.”

His eye caught the nearly imperceptible tremble in her lip and he frowned. He reached up to slide her sunglasses down her nose so he could see her eyes, and surprisingly she let him.

She was crying, and the sight of the wet tracks that her tears had left stunned him. A single tear slipped from her eye and rolled down her cheek and he reacted quickly, catching it with his thumb and gently sweeping it away.

“Maybe,” she sniffled, her voice barely loud enough for him to hear.

She pulled away, pushed her sunglasses back on and hugged her knees to her chest. He kept his eyes on her as she turned her gaze back to the window, catching her fleeting smile crack her seriousness before it disappeared from her face.

As he turned the car on and pulled back onto the road, something new had settled in his heart, and the warmth it brought spread throughout him in waves.

He didn’t know if he could ever love her more than he did in that very moment.

They drove in silence until the sky darkened and slow raindrops began to fall.

Laura was curled under his jacket in the passenger seat, breathing softly, having succumbed to her exhaustion miles back. He stifled a yawn, the edges of his own mind becoming fuzzy, his body desperate for a shower and a warm bed.

After a few miles, he found a hotel that was far nicer than the run-down, outdated ones they had become accustomed to, and he left her sleeping in the car while he went into the front office to get them a room. He watched her from the window the entire time, only taking his eyes off of her to sign his name and get the keys.

“Hey,” he said when he returned, resting a hand on her shoulder and gently nudging her awake.

She sat up and yawned, staring blearily through the windshield at the hotel, then back up at him with a frown.

He shrugged. “Come on. Let’s get you to a bed,” he said, reaching a hand out to help her up.

She had woken up a little more by the time they got to the room, and when they entered she dropped her things and mumbled to him that she was going to look for a vending machine. He considered asking her to get him something, but thought better of it, and snapped his mouth shut in time with the lock clicking into place behind her.

He couldn’t say he hadn’t expected her silence. This was who she was, and it might always be a part of her. The deeper the confession, the more vulnerable she became, the tighter she locked herself away.

It was a consistent cycle and he was learning to accept it.

But lately a knot had begun to settle in his chest at her bouts of strained silence, and he would feel anxious and desperate for her to speak to him again.

Every time she shut down he was certain this was it, that this would be the moment when she would leave him. He couldn’t remember a time, if ever, when he allowed a woman to have so much control over him. But then again, with her, he wouldn’t have it any other way.

It seemed that the closer they became, and the more in love with her he fell, the deeper his fear of losing her ran.

He showered quickly so he wouldn’t miss her when she came back, and when she did, he felt a wave of relief wash over him. He tried to catch her eye, but she avoided him.

She pulled her jacket off and without looking at him went straight to the bathroom, tossing him a candy bar on the way. He caught it midair. It was his favorite. The fluttering stirred in his chest again and he looked up in time to see her disappear into the bathroom and shut the door.

She took a long time, a lot longer than usual, and as he clicked absently through the channels on the tv his eyes kept flitting to the bathroom door. When she finally emerged, he hastily turned the tv off and watched her as she padded around the room, getting dressed and brushing her hair and teeth.

When she finally crawled onto her side of the spacious bed and turned to shut off the light, he caught her arm, and startled, she turned to him.

“Wait,” he said, his voice catching in his throat.

She lowered her hand from the light and looked at him with a flash of annoyance that he knew he shouldn’t take personally.

“What?”

“I think you’re mine, too,” he said quickly, his eyes fixed on hers. The weight behind the words swelled in him, and he felt how true they were and he wanted her to feel it too. He wanted her to believe him when he said with complete certainty that she was his other half, his partner, his soulmate.

Her cheeks flushed furiously and for a terrifying moment he thought she would pull away, and his heart leapt in his chest. He took her hand in his and pulled it him.

“I didn’t say it then, and I should have, but I’m saying it now, and I hope that counts for something.”

She closed her eyes and took a long, deep breath that released in a nearly audible sigh.

When she opened them, her eyes were shining with unshed tears. He pressed her hand to his racing heart and she opened her fingers to cover it, looking back up at him with such care and tenderness that it overwhelmed him.

“I can feel it, like I think you feel it. Like you exist in every single part of me. Like you’ve always been there, and I just had to find you.”

She sniffled and looked away.

“If I’m wrong, tell me I’m wrong, because I’d rather know then...”

“You’re not wrong,” she said quickly, shaking her head and turning back to him.

She crawled to him and he reached for her, drawing her onto his lap, his arms tightly wrapped around her, holding her against him so close he could feel her heart beating rapidly into his chest.

“You found me, I found you,” she breathed quietly, shyly, holding his face in between her hands and pressing a kiss to his lips, slow and soft and filled with words unsaid. His eyes drifted closed to the feel of her lips sliding delicately over his.

“Laura…” he murmured, over and over, in between their dreamy, drawn out kisses, her name sounding like a prayer that his adoration and agony had conceived.

He pulled away briefly, but kept his face close, brushing his lips against hers, her minty breath tingling his skin, then sighed back in, his body responding to the low moans that purred from her throat. She shuddered and pressed herself closer, gripping him between her thighs, his fingers gripping and releasing, then gripping tighter again with each kiss.

She wrapped her arms around his neck, and he moaned when her tongue dipped tentatively into his mouth. He ran his hands up and down her back, feeling her thin body beneath her too big T-shirt, then tugging on her damp hair and sliding back down and over her thighs to grip his fingertips into her bare skin, and they stayed like that, holding on to each other.

She kissed a lazy path from his lips, across his cheeks, and down the side of his neck and he buried his nose into her hair, breathing her in.

“No one has ever tried to see me before. It’s so… fucking lonely when no one really sees you…” She whispered into his ear, carefully sounding out each word of the information she’d never shared, shivering despite the warmth of his body pressed against hers. “But I know you can see me, the real me, I can feel it...”

Her voice drifted with her thoughts and she sighed, resting her head heavily against his shoulder, her body becoming still in his arms. He held her to him, trying to control the waves of sadness he felt for her slow before looking at her. She would hate it if she thought he was pitying her.

After a moment, he pulled back and she sat up, her face tired, but peaceful. He studied her, tracing her features with his eyes and then his fingertips.

He was beginning to understand what they meant to each other, how their histories had shaped them and brought them to this very moment. How fate had brought two people who carried the same pain and heartache together, two people who had been so often misunderstood and overlooked and deeply unseen, and how their fates would finally allow them to find the acceptance and understanding they craved in each other.

He reached out to hold a piece of her hair between his fingers, studying it closely as he wound it around his fingers. He looked up to meet her hazel eyes, seeing her fears and her desires, and his heart flared in his chest.

“You’re not alone, wife. I see you. I’ll always see you.”

She nodded and swallowed the tears down, and he held the back of her neck as they dipped into each other.

What came next were slow, lingering kisses, leaving them completely exposed with no space for hiding.

It was the kind of kissing that she had avoided, and often struggled to do with anyone, including Shadow, because it was too personal and demanded too much from her, more than she was willing or able to give.

But with him she didn’t pull back or put a stop to it. The idea never even crossed her mind, and it would have shocked her if she weren’t so consumed by him.

It was different with him. With him she felt warm and safe and loved and his large arms that were wrapped around her held her and protected her, and kept the doubts from creeping into her mind.

But even if they did, even if she fell apart and yelled, screamed, cried, or ran, she knew he would still love her, and it was with that security that she was able to let go.

They were completely unhurried, like they wanted to make it last forever, pausing only to take in deep, shaking breaths or to pull back and look into each other’s eyes before sighing back in.

With his lips pressed to her ear he whispered things to her, intimate murmurings of love and promises. Things that were easy to confess to her in the dim light of the room while she was holding him tightly against her and he felt safe.

He made noises as she kissed him, light and soft, almost imperceptible, but there. She wondered if this was something that he’d always done and that she just hadn’t noticed before or if he had finally reached a level of comfort with her and he wanted her to understand what her lips did to him.

She looked into his honest eyes that exposed to her his tender, breakable soul and she felt it then, like a hummingbird bird trapped in her chest, fluttering wildly against her rib cage, that he trusted her with his whole heart.

The weight of that was crushing, and her breath was swept from her lungs.

She wanted to say it, those three words that for so long had felt empty and meant nothing, but now took on a whole new meaning. They were resting on the tip of her tongue, longing to be used.

If there was ever a moment for her to say them, it would have been right then and there. But once again they stuck to her throat like honey and she forced a smile despite her disappointment in herself. He sensed her shift and tilted his head, watching her closely.

“I’m ok,” she promised, though her chest was aching. She swept her fingertips across his cheeks and his jaw, before lowering her lips to his again, kissing him deeply, chasing his doubts away.

His hands moved to the bottom of her T-shirt, and she lifted her arms as he pulled it up and over her head, her hair cascading down her bare back. He quickly reclaimed her mouth, and she whimpered when he pulled her bottom lip between his teeth. He trailed soft, open mouth kisses down her neck, pausing to run his tongue across her collarbone, and she threaded her fingers into his tangled hair.

Her eyes drifted closed and her breath quickened as her head lolled back. He lowered his head to brush his lips over the tops of her breasts, finally pulling a taut nipple between his teeth. She moaned and arched back, holding the back of his head firmly against her as he worked, and her hips involuntarily rocked against him.

His hand drifted down her stomach to between her legs, and he hummed with longing against her skin when he touched her, then slid in and out of her. She gasped and dug her fingernails into his shoulders, her grip tightening with each slow, torturous movement, the sounds of their ragged breaths breaking the silence of the quiet hotel room.

She felt herself losing control, careening to the end and she desperately wanted him there with her. She reached down between them, and he groaned into her chest as she took all of him into her.

Every second of it was agonizingly slow and intense and passionate, just like their kisses. They wanted to feel every part of each other.

She moved her hips with deliberate slowness until she felt him tensing against her, and his breath heavy against her chest, and she reached behind him to hold the headboard to ride him harder and faster, pushing them both towards the brink.

He tipped his head back to rest heavily against the headboard and with dark, hooded eyes and deep, guttural moans that pulled from his chest, he watched her with rapt focus as she rose and fell above him, feeling his insides coil tightly when she came apart with a gasp and a cry. She shakily cupped his cheek in her hand and staring straight through him, she crashed her lips against his and his fingers gripped her hips one last time as he sailed with her over the edge.

It was in the following minutes, as they peppered each other with soft, drowsy kisses and held hands as they drifted off beneath the cool sheets of the neat hotel bed, that they decided that Lakeside could wait. They were going to take their time.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A thousand apologies for the immense delay. I struggled a bit with where I wanted this story to go, and how to get it there, and didn't want to publish until I felt I was moving in the right direction with it. 
> 
> Thank you for your patience! I hope you enjoy! xx

# Chapter 14

It had been nearly a month and the world around them had never been more silent, the atmosphere never so light, or their luck never so… lucky.

The cool air that blew through the open windows of the car, that flowed through her fingers and laced through her hair, wasn’t heavy or foreboding. It didn’t carry with it an uneasiness or a threat of what was to come. It was clean and clear and peaceful and it helped them forget, at least for a little while, their uncertain future and the grim destinies that the gods had fated for them.

For the most part, they had been left completely, blessedly, and, surprisingly, alone. No irritating run ins with belligerent gods, old or new. No Ostara or Bilquis hunting them down, chastising them and setting them straight.

They had not seen one single meddlesome crow, not lazily circling the road as their car passed beneath, or perched upon wires, glassy eyes watching them sharply as they walked hand in hand.

There’d even been fewer bar fights, aside from the ones he claimed he “couldn’t avoid because the fucking asshole was asking for it”. And even those she had to admit were worth it, especially if she got to roll her eyes and pretend to be annoyed while hungrily watching him do what he did best. She’d then pretend to be surprised when, flushed and panting, he would grab her and press her hard against a brick wall in a dark alley or fist his hands in her hair while he laid her over the hood of a car.

She’d never own up to it, but she may have had a hand in starting some of those fights.

All in all, there was nothing to report. No one reporting to them. No one looking for them. Completely and utter radio silence.

They had been left alone for so long that it was almost enough to make them believe that things had settled, and that they were no longer needed. That Wednesday had given up, had ended his fool’s war and fled to a place in the world where he was still relevant, honored, and revered, even if it was in the smallest and most insignificant way.

It was _almost_ enough.

She knew better than that. _They_ knew better than that. The psychopathic master manipulator would never let go that easily, not when such a tremendous force of power was at stake, the lives of so many sacrifices right at his fingertips. He wasn’t going to lose his most prized possession, his backbone, his spear, to a drunken meathead and a dead-not-dead, pain in the ass girl. He was never going to let Shadow out of his steely grasp, not without building him up and bleeding him dry and turning him back to nothing. He wasn’t going to roll over and take it. He was just biding his time.

Still. She was nothing if not selfish, a fact he knew all too well. She had spent so long fighting for someone else’s life. Now she just wanted some time to fight for her own.

So a month passed before they had even realized it had been a month. A month that started the minute they'd woken up tangled around each other, in the clean white bed of the nice room in the nicer-than-average hotel. She looked at him and he at her, and there were no walls between them. Not anymore. And they knew. If they were going to die at the end of this, then they were going to get the most out of their lives before they allowed that to happen.

They began a stretch of time that they’d dared to think of as normal, if normal was something that was even possible anymore.

They left the room in southern Wisconsin that was so close and so far from where they were supposed to be, where things between them had delicately shifted and left space for new growth, and drove far out of the way to visit places she’d neve imagined she’d go to because she had never once left Eagle Point.

Part of her expected him to poke fun at her for that, for staying in one place her whole life and never having the courage or the energy or the belief in herself to get away. For hiding away and wasting her life. But he didn’t, and with each new place they visited he held her hand and led the way, explained its significance and history, surprising her with his knowledge and patience even as she asked hundreds of questions and dragged him in and out of museums and gift shops and bookstores.

Occasionally, when something she’d learned that day sparked an all consuming interest, he’d follow her into local libraries where he gave her the space to learn more. He’d relax nearby and sip from his flask, admiring her as she poured over piles of books, occasionally looking up to excitedly tell him some new piece of information. She noticed how he listened closely, taking an active interest, sometimes asking questions or goading her into an argument that disputed what she’d read, then smiling as she took the bait.

She welcomed the debate eagerly, liked how he picked at her brain and questioned her and didn’t tell her what he thought she wanted to hear. She would stand up and pace and lecture and argue and he would sit back and watch her and wait for a chance to respond. She was getting so close to the person she had always wanted to be, and her desire to push herself there burned in her because he was right there, pushing her too. And because of that, everyday she felt a little safer just being herself.

At night they would find their way to an out of the way motel, falling into a comfortable pattern of making love then curling their bodies around each other to sleep. Nighttime had quickly become their favorite part of the day.

It was during the night that they felt truly alone and undisturbed. They would take this time to get to know each other intimately, learning every inch of each other’s body, how it felt, the way it tasted, the way it responded to the touch of fingertips or the soft, brush of lips.

He would lay back and let her take control whenever she wanted, and she loved watching his face when she did things to him that made his toes curl and his eyes roll back in his head, her name dying on his lips. Rough and fast and demanding. Slow and deep and gentle. Pushing the boundaries or stepping back to build the anticipation, it didn't matter. Sex had become something completely new for her, and she wanted to experience it all with him.

After, he’d curve his arm around her waist and pull her into him, and they’d sleep like that, one part of him always touching one part of her, never more than an arm’s length between them. It felt natural, and they settled into it as if they had been doing it all their lives.

Once, as she let him drag her down onto the bed to twist his arms and legs around her and nuzzle his nose into her neck she wondered if, like all the other times in her life, she would tire of this. Tire of him touching her and kissing her and lingering around over her on days when his love for her tried to burst out of his skin.

In a moment so quick he barely noticed her shift, a pang of fear at the idea erupted from her stomach and sent a shockwave throughout her body. She stilled and waited, but nothing followed. The panic hadn’t settled into her chest and the need to run didn’t take over her mind. Warmth overwhelmed her, and with a deep, sharp breath the fear was gone, replaced by a calming, innate sense of knowing that reminded her that she had found her place and it was by his side, as it had been for lifetimes upon lifetimes. She didn’t have to run anymore. She didn’t _want_ to run anymore.

In the mornings he would steal those precious moments when the world was still and the only sound breaking the silence was her soft breath against his chest, and watch her while she slept, waiting until the last possible minute to wake her. And when he finally did, he would do so slowly, his fingertips delicately touching her cheek or chin or the gentle curve of her jawline, and place soft kisses on her lips or the bridge of her nose.

Everyday her eyes would flutter open and search for his and when she met them she would bury her face against his neck and sleepily smile because she had been given a new day with him and because the way he was looking at her reminded her that she had been waking up wrong her whole life.

He found it less and less necessary to drink himself into oblivion, the dark thoughts having kept their distance for the time being, and he felt satisfied with the few pulls he took from his flask while watching her take her turn at driving or in the drinks they would have together when they stopped at a roadside bar or diner. She stopped smoking, and when he asked why she shrugged dismissively and said that she’d lost the taste for it, but deep down she knew it was because she now had someone to live for. She now had a desire to be _alive._

He liked the normalcy of it all, and against his better judgement and because he was a man in love, he pushed any doubt to the back of his mind and sank into it, fully and completely.

Then suddenly it had been a month and both of them knew they had taken too much time, but neither wanted to be the one to say it. The last few days they had danced around it, finding different things to occupy their time so they wouldn’t have to think about it, but she couldn’t chase the nagging thoughts from her mind.

“When they want us, they’ll find us, you can be sure of that,” he said to her one night as they sat at a near empty bar in the middle of South Dakota. She waited until later that night before she said it to him, and she did so without looking at him, so he wouldn’t see the disappointment in her eyes or the frustration working across her jaw.

She nodded dully, hearing but not really believing, her drink sitting untouched in front of her, the ice melting and water perspiring on the glass. She was twirling a toothpick with a wedge of lime at the end, watching it absently, her mind a sea of thoughts and the nagging sensation heavy in her gut.

Sensing the turbulence brewing, he reached down and drew her chair closer to him. He brushed her hair back from her face and leaned in, pressing his lips to her ear. She breathed in deeply, his touch drawing her back to the present.

“But if you want to go, we’ll go,” he whispered. “We can make it there in a few days time. It’s whatever you want, love.”

She turned to him and smiled tiredly, then lifted her chin and brushed her lips lightly across his. She didn’t want to go. That wasn’t what she wanted. But they had to go, there was no other choice. They had put it off long enough.

A new song echoed around the tired bar, another Irish song, this one melancholic and slow, different from the others they’d heard that night. It crooned from the ancient jukebox in the corner, eliciting long low groans from the other patrons.

The bartender stormed across the floor to shake and pound the offending machine. 

“Damn things broken!” He shouted angrily out to no one in particular.

Sweeney watched the scene across from them, a glint of mischief in his eye and the shadow of a smile on his lips. The manager tussled with the ancient machine one last time before waving his hands in defeat.

“Did you mess with the jukebox?” She asked quietly, narrowing her eyes at him.

He shrugged and winked. He leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes as his lips moved silently to the words of the song. Suddenly he stilled and swallowed, and though his eyes remaining closed, she could see the pain that had washed across his face.

She knew he was remembering, his music did that to him. A piece of her heart broke for him and the past he was haunted by. The loss of his country, his people, his family, his life. The things he had done that he couldn’t forgive himself for. The years he spent alone and at the disposal of Wednesday. A small fire within her was rekindled at the thought, the revenge she was seeking now including the part he played in Sweeney’s long suffering life.

She crossed her arms over the grainy bar top, and laid her head down as she studied him. She could try to pretend she knew what it must feel like, but she knew it was nothing compared to her own private pain. The most she could do was help him heal by killing the asshole that caused it.

“What do you want?” She asked after the song had ended, though part of her already knew the answer.

He opened his eyes and met hers in a gaze that was filled with honesty and pure love and she squirmed uncomfortably in her seat and buried her nose into the crook of her arm. His eyes darkened and he smiled.

“Don’t ask questions you already know the answer to,” he whispered, leaning forward again to nuzzle into her neck and run his hand up her thigh. He gave it a squeeze and slid up an inch more. “Especially when you’re giving me looks like that.”

A shiver of excitement ran down her back and her heart leapt against her ribcage. He lifted his head and looking into her eyes, nodded subtly to the darkened hallway leading to the bathrooms at the back of the bar. The corners of her eyes crinkled as she smiled.

“Hey, asshole! Get a fucking room!”

Sweeney’s body tensed and his eyes shot up. She sat up and followed the direction of his gaze. There was a group of men sitting at the end of the bar watching them and laughing loudly, bottles of beer scattered around them. She remembered them from earlier. They had been gathered in the corner throwing darts when they had arrived. One of them, a short barrel chested man, had dragged his small eyes over her and elbowed another, nodding in her direction. He’d smiled at her lecherously and she curled her lip on distaste. She slid her hand into Sweeney’s and stared back pointedly, and noting the size of him, their eyes narrowed and turned away.

Now sufficiently drunk enough to believe they could take Sweeney on, the men smirked and laughed as the one who eyed Laura opened his arms in a challenge.

“The fuck did you say?” Sweeney drawled, leaning back in his chair, lazy and unbothered.

“I said take that dumb _bitch_ outta here.”

_Fuck_. Laura’s head snapped back to him.

“Sweeney, don’t…”

He was up and moving before she could get out of her seat. Her arm shot out and she tried to catch him as he strode past, but she missed and had to walk quickly to catch up.

He stalked purposefully towards the men at the end of the bar, zeroing in on his target. The man’s eyes grew wide at the sight of Sweeney, at the sheer size of him, at the fire she knew must be blazing in his eyes. He grabbed the guy roughly by the collar and hauled him out of his seat and into the air as if he weighed no more than a feather. Before his friends could react, Sweeney had slammed him against the wall so hard it rattled the windows and shook the dusty framed pictures, sending a few crashing to the floor. He pulled back and let loose, and each punch he rained upon the man was punctuated by words said evenly and with finality.

“Don’t. Fucking. Talk. About. My wife. Like that.”

The last punch sent the man careening through the bar door. Shock hit her chest and exploded throughout her body in time with the last punch he threw. Dizziness overtook her as blood rushed unchecked to her head and her heart.

The names flew through her mind as quickly as she could remember them. _Dead wife, asshole, cunt, this one, love, wife…_

She had been many things, but she’d never been something that she knew was so sacred to him. _My_ wife.

Everything after that came in slow motion, a blur of flying fists and bodies, smashing chairs and broken glass. He was in the thick of it, a monster among human men, his body a golden whorl, lightning slashing a cloud of uppercuts and jabs. She didn’t know if it was her dazed mind or an image created by the wild tangle of bodies, but she would have sworn that he had changed. In a moment that lasted only as quickly as it was realized, she saw his hair lengthened into a long braid threaded with sharpened barbs and a thick gold bar wound around the bulging muscles in his neck. Streaks of brilliant blue scored his chest, and his eyes… his eyes glowed, golden and bright, and frighteningly bare. She had never seen something so beautiful.

As if he felt her stare, he turned to look for her and when their eyes met, his lips curled into slow smile and she felt her body lifting up and towards him.

A familiar sound, the cold clear click of a cocking gun, pulled her from her daze and she turned slowly to see the bartender pointing a long barreled shotgun at the mass of fighting men.

“Hey!” He shouted at the top of his lungs. The group stilled, and one by one the men turned to stare at the shaky gun.

“I don’t know who the fuck you are,” he said unsteadily, and she knew by the fear in his eyes he was speaking to Sweeney, “But I’m gonna need you to get the fuck outta here right now or I’m gonna blow ya head clean off your shoulders.”

Part of her felt bad for him. This hadn’t been the first time someone had pointed a gun at Sweeney, and it definitely wouldn’t be the last. Her eyes darted back to him.

He was breathing heavily and smiling, the only one in the crowd of men who didn’t have his hands raised in defense. He chuckled, his grin widening to reveal a split lip that had turned his teeth a brilliant red. The bartender lowered his gun just a hair at the sight, before he lifted the gun with more certainty.

Sweeney, still smiling, nodded. He looked around him at the bleeding, broken men, and seemed satisfied.

“Wife,” he said reaching his hand to her, his eyes fixed on the gun. “We gotta go, love. Fun’s over.” 

_Wife_. She blindly stepped to him and slipped her hand into his and he pulled her out the door with him.

The nagging knot in her chest returned, but this time she knew it was for a completely different reason.


	15. Chapter 15

# Chapter 15

_“How will I know when I…” Believe?_

_“Oh, you’ll know....”_

Was this the moment? Was this what it felt like when she let herself sink, untethered and trusting, into the inky black depths of belief? When the heavy, blinding fog of her mind thinned and cleared in a moment so brief she could have blinked and missed it, had it shown her the truth she needed to see existing just beyond her own narrow point of view?

Her mind had always been analytical and rational, valuing science, fact, and data over imagination, belief, and romance. Before all this, she had prided herself on rarely ever being swayed by the emotions that made life, for most, interesting. She allowed herself to feel only what helped her wake every morning, and keep her feet moving each day, one in front of the other, until even that had begun to fail her.

But that was before. Before a lucky coin gave her life in death. Before a ray of light from a husband she hadn’t valued became a beacon of hope. Before she was given the opportunity to right her wrongs, and the strength she needed to do it. Before she met (then _really_ met) him.

She’s beginning to see the value, the necessity of the other side. She understands why people fight for it, cling to it, and rely on it. Belief has an effect on the spirit. It gives people the power to keep moving forward, and she can feel that same energy relentlessly pulling her to where she needs to be. She doesn’t know enough about her belief yet, but she thinks she wants more of it. She thinks she’s ready for it.

But it wasn’t just the belief in the unexplainable. There was more. There was him.

He had called her wife so often it barely fazed her anymore. _Dead wife_ for when she had been a moody, living corpse and he was guarded and defensive and kept his distance. She couldn’t blame him for that, she’d done the same thing. It was _wife _once she returned, the edginess and irritation in his voice softened when it was revealed that his love for her gave her life. She’d noticed the shift, but refused to make it a thing.__

____

In anger, frustration, adoration, and love. To poke at and mock and eventually show desire and affection. She’d thought she'd heard it all.

____

But she hadn’t.

____

This time when he’d said it he’d made the choice, whether purposely or unconsciously, to claim her as _his_ , and the instantaneous swell of emotion she felt at the intimateness of the title made her dizzy and lightheaded. The simple phrase had power behind it, and for a moment the room stilled and time slowed to stop. It echoed in her ears, opening her heart and her soul and quieting her exhaustingly critical mind, making space for the bright, persistent light of belief to finally fill. After so many years of denial, the simple act of acceptance flooded her systems. It surged through her and spilled over and reached directly for him. She believed in him. She believed in his love. She was beginning to believe in love. She was changing, and so was he.

____

Her reaction to his transformation was one of shock and awe, with a rushing sensation that was new, but familiar, and so quick and overwhelming that it pushed tears into her eyes. He was more than she had ever imagined, more than she had ever allowed herself to see, and, as difficult as it was for her to comprehend, she knew on some level that she had helped to create him. Her belief was beautiful and pure and true and though it was hers, it belonged solely to him. It sustained him and empowered him. It gave him access to a long lost part himself, a part that he thought he’d lost forever. 

____

Then, with a sudden, sharp pang in her stomach, everything shifted, and she remembered a voice, clear and commanding.

____

_“He’s gonna need a believer, a real one, and honey, you’re the only candidate I see for miles.”_

____

Reality crashed over her like a rogue wave, enormous and unexpected. She now had a new role to play, that of the believer. She now had a responsibility to keep him powered with a belief she just learned she had. And just like that, fear slunk back in.

____

Between the chaos of the bar and the short ride back to the motel, the competition between her rational mind and the new wants and desires of her heart were raging, and the sudden shift in the expectations of their relationship was suffocating her. It settled it’s hefty burden on her mind, playing cruelly with her vulnerabilities and doubts, and the thoughts ran wild and unchecked.

____

_How can you be someone’s wife again? You sent your first to prison and cheated on him. You were never meant to be a wife._

____

_You’ll never commit to him. You’re too weak. You give up too easily._

____

_You’ll never be able to support him on your own because you’ll never fully believe, or you’ll give up, or..._

____

She closed her eyes and swallowed thickly. She had been naive enough to think she’d been safe from it, the fear and the self sabotage, trusting that her recent choices of life and love over death and detachment could protect her from what lie beneath. She’d let herself believe that the denial and the disappointment was no longer rooted in her, when in reality it had never left. It ran deep like an old scar whose nagging itch she was beginning to feel once again.

____

An eternal fight burned in her chest. Change was her kryptonite, denial her sword, and when she was faced with the choice between fighting for fact and her truth or giving herself over to belief, she would almost always choose the battle. She doesn’t know who she is without the battle. She feels safe in the battle.

____

_No, she reminds herself, now I feel safe with him. It’s different now. I can do this. I feel safe with…_

____

“You ok?” He asked, pulling her sharply from her racing mind. She turned to him, realized she had been biting her already short nails to the quick, and dropped her hand sheepishly into her lap. She nodded, and quickly looked away before he could really see her.

____

His fingers which had been strumming the steering wheel in time with the beating of her heart, began to slow. His eyes stayed on her and she pursed her lips, willing him to turn away. She knew he’d ask her. She can’t hide from him. But right now she… can’t. So she tries to hide.

____

“Really,” she says, turning back to him, her practiced tone reassuring and her eyes expertly softened. “I’m fine.”

____

There was a pause between then, and for a moment a sense of dread spread like ice water through her veins. 

____

_Fuck. Can gods read minds?_

____

Then he smiled, and he lifted her hand to his lips.

____

“Stop chewing on your nails, love. You won’t have any fingers left if you keep going.”

____

With one eye on the road, he kissed the tips of each of her mangled fingertips and she pointedly ignored the tug at her heart. When he released her hand, he went right back to the strumming and she closed her eyes and let go of the breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding.

____

When they got to the room, the high he had from the bar had been rekindled, and the energy it produced took up so much space she couldn’t avoid it. She closed the door and when she turned back he was watching her, his eyes glinting excitedly, expectantly.

____

“Fuck. That was fun,” he said, a little breathlessly, throwing the keys onto the table. “Been a while since we’ve had one of those, eh?”

____

“Ya, sure…” she said, distractedly. She leaned against the door, afraid to get close to him. Afraid the belief would rise in her again even as she felt it bubbling impatiently under her skin, waiting for its moment to make itself known.

____

He sat on the edge of the bed and began to pull his boots off, and in the light of the room she was able to get her first good look at him since he was in the midst of the fight. An angry bruise was beginning to form and darken under his left eye, his hair was a tangled mess, and he was still breathing hard from the rush of adrenaline and the taste of blood on his lips. He was a little roughed up and bloodied, and she wasn’t sure where his button down had disappeared to, but that wasn’t what kept her attention. Something about him was different and as she narrowed her eyes to get a closer look, she was beginning to see.

____

The shininess of his skin, a light that was illuminating him from the inside out.

____

She was not imagining it. The brilliance that had permeated him as he pummelled and thrashed had lingered, and it pulsed bright with each hard beat of his heart. Her brow creased with wonder and curiosity as her eyes scanned his body. Her heart stirred and something wild clawed inside her chest, desperate to get out.

____

“What?” He asked, cocking his head slightly and standing.

____

She lifted her gaze to his and didn’t let go, even as her heart surged with panic and the sound of its frantic beating thrummed loudly in her ears. Her breath sped up and she felt like she couldn’t get enough air. Her skin flushed hotly and she knew he was seeing the blush spread over her cheeks. As the sensations rolled over her and consumed her, she felt herself losing control. Her fingers curled desperately against her thighs, bunching her dress in her hands.

____

_No..._

____

Realization darkened his eyes, and he swallowed hard, the smile slipping from his face along with his coat from his slackened hand.

____

She closed her eyes, calmly and slowly, taking deep breaths as she silently counted to ten, and when they reopened, the Sweeney she had become so familiar with, whose body and mind she had touched and worshipped and memorized, was gone. The warrior god stood before her now, an ancient being looking oddly out of place in the modern motel room, the slashes of brilliant blue against his ruddy, freckled chest, his messy hair expertly braided and wrapped with worn leather and metal spikes. The long, deadly spear gripped firmly in one large, scarred hand. The power and confidence, the intimidation and the violence.

____

Her gaze drifted to his again, this time meeting the intense glare of unfamiliar, golden eyes that didn’t quite belong to him, and fear at the loss of him took her breath away. She started, the shock propelling her back to the room and reality. She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head to clear it. She wasn’t ready for this, it was too much. It didn’t make sense. She couldn’t let go.

____

She opened them again. He was back.

____

Blink. _Warrior._

____

Blink. _Sweeney._

____

Blink.

____

“Stop!” She yelled into the air. “What the _fuck_ is happening?” The question was abrupt with an anger that wasn’t quite warranted, but was all that she could manage.

____

“What’s this I'm feeling?” He asked thickly, ignoring her. His voice betrayed him. He already knew. Of course he already knew. He wanted to hear her say it.

____

_Fuck._

____

She shook her head, tearing her eyes from him. She could feel the emotions swelling and bubbling over, and she gritted her teeth against it.

____

“I don’t fucking know,” she answered brusquely, her hands roughly rubbing the back of her neck. Her gut was roiling in warning, telling her to calm down, slow down, breath, and be honest, but she was too stubborn to listen, even to her instincts.

____

“You do know,” he said, pushing her. “You startin’ to believe in something then?”

____

This time when he asked her it wasn’t playfully. His tone had taken on a serious sort of desperation that shook her deeply. She knew what he ached to hear. His chest rose and fell rapidly waiting for her response.

____

“I…”

____

“Just answer me. Are you startin’ to believe in something, wife?”

____

_Wife_. She sucked in a sharp breath. The memory hit her like a train. His absolute certainty when he called her his wife, followed by his transformation into an ancient warrior, golden and glorious. How it felt when the belief surged powerfully as it was pulled from deep within her, and how he became brighter and bolder and full of confidence the more the acceptance settled in her mind. How she had so easily given herself to it, allowing her soul to be carried away closer, closer, closer to him…

____

Right on time, her mind stepped in to remind her of her doubts with a swooping type of panic that comes from knowing that everything, _everything_ you have ever understood about yourself and the world and the way things are supposed to work, has now been challenged. How could a single moment unravel a complicated lifetime of disbelief, denial, and doubt? How could a single moment shake the progress she’d made, the walls that she’d torn down, and the trust she’d built in herself and in him?

____

It can’t. _It can’t._ She shuddered and pressed her hands over her ears.

____

“I said don’t know,” she bit out again, her anger giving way to confusion and disappointment. She thought she could handle it. She thought...

____

“I can feel it, Laura, it’s...strong,” he said, flexing and tightening his fingers, and she could almost see it bursting from his skin, the aura of the warrior.

____

”I… can’t. Please. Don’t ask me to do this,” she said, her voice catching. She pressed her palms to her throat and tried to hold it in.

____

Saying it was too hard. Saying it meant she had to let go of everything she knew to be true and the iron grip of control she had on her own life. Saying meant she was completely responsible for sustaining him.

____

Once she said it, she could never, ever go back.

____

She wants to cry as the fear overtakes the small part of her that was willing to fight, that had been trying so hard to fight this. She wants to cry as she lets it engulf her, then she wants to cry at the anger that fills in the rest.

____

____

”I know, Laura,” he said, his patience waning. “But you have to.”

____

“I can’t!”

____

“No, just… fuck! “ He raked his fingers roughly through his hair, a move she had come to know as a desperate attempt to control his frustration. “This is what you wanted! You _wanted_ this belief. You asked for it! You can’t run from this, not this time.”

____

“I’m not running!”

____

“Then just say it!”

____

“You already fucking know. You don’t need me to say it!”

____

“Because that’s the whole fucking point of belief!” He growled through clenched teeth.

____

”You think I don’t know that?! Do you think this is fucking easy for me? Then you don’t know me at all, because it’s not, it’s not,” she shouted, gesturing wildly and laughing bitterly, her defeat palpable. 

____

“I thought you could handle it, guess I was wrong,” he said, striking a nerve. “You make things enormously harder than they need to be, you know that, right?” He asked, pointing a finger at her.

____

“Ya, well, this has always been hard,” she said, brutally. “I’m not sure why you’re so fucking shocked.” She doesn’t mean it. She doesn’t mean any of this, and her heart breaks as she hears herself breaking his.

____

They were quiet for a moment as he stared at her hard and the only sounds that filled the air was that of their heavy, ragged breathing.

____

“So this is too hard for you? Us? Me? Because I don’t believe that.” He finally said. 

____

_No._

____

“Yes.”

____

He scoffed and took a step closer to her, and said she lifted her chin and folded her arms.

____

“You’re lying.”

____

“I am not.”

____

"Yes you fucking are!” He roared, stepping so close to her she could feel the beat of his heart through his chest. “What did I tell you about lying? You can’t do it, you’ve got a terrible fucking tell.”

____

She suddenly hates the look in his eye, the one that says that he knows her like the back of his hand, and that no matter how hard she tried he would see right through her like she were made of glass. She wants to hide from him, to shut him up, distract him, take back her control.

____

So she does what she knows works best. She grabs him and presses her fingers and nails so hard into the back of his neck that she knows they’ll leave marks, and she kisses him.

____

It’s a kiss fired by passion and anger and fear and desperation, and she’s hoping it’s enough to make him forget that she’s changing and that belief is pouring steadily from her skin.

____

But he’s made of glass too, and she knows him just as well, and as she presses herself harder against him, she knows this is the last time she’ll hold him as just Sweeney, and that hoping is hopeless.

____


	16. Chapter 16

# Chapter 16

This. _She’s kissing him like she needs him to breathe._

This is what she wants.

This. _She’s holding him so close, like her life depends on his touch._

This she can handle.

She wants more time for this. Just this. Only this. 

She wants to just be herself, and for him to just be him, no one else, and especially not a god that has to rely on her to survive. She can’t be that for him, she thought she could, but she can’t, she can’t... 

She just wants time. Time to figure things out, to learn and grow and pull him in further, see how far he’ll fit inside her. She wants his love and patience, his body tangled with hers and the intimate, quiet moments in the dark when he’s whispering things in her ear that makes her heart quicken.

She wants them to forget this night, as impossible as that was. She wants to make love to him and curl her body around him, a routine she was beginning to rely on. To wake in the morning and continue on their road trip, and maybe find Shadow, or maybe not, and she knew it was completely insane and unreasonable and selfish, but like a wild animal backed into a corner, she was desperate with the need to escape. She has to try to escape, and to pull him with her into a world of their own creation. She has to try.

She withdrew her lips from his, just barely, just enough to brush them against his and breathe his air into her lungs. She kept her hands firmly on his neck, pressing her nails in deeper, just enough to make it hurt.

“Let's just forget it,” she breathed. “We’ll talk about it tomorrow, ok? Just kiss me.”

He opened his mouth to object, but she swallowed his unsaid words, pressing her mouth firmly against his and sliding her tongue slowly along his lip. She felt him give into her slightly, his lips parting just enough to allow her to dip in and deepen the kiss. A low moan hummed in his throat, his fingers twitching and curling into her lower back, and she took advantage of his lapse in control, dragging her mouth across his cheek and the strong curve of his jawline, kissing down his neck and biting at his chest through his shirt. Her hands found his belt, pulling at it impatiently and tugging it through the loops with a snap.

She needed to touch him, every inch of him, and lose herself in him. She wanted to fist her fingers in his wild, fiery hair and force him to look into her eyes while she controlled him, so she could see it, the love that burned openly, and only for her. She just wanted that love, needed it to ground her, to stabilize her, to make her feel safe. She couldn’t handle the rest. Not right now. Maybe not ever.

“Laura,” he murmured weakly against her lips once she had pulled him down to her again.

She heard him, through the fog of her mind she heard his voice waft in, but she couldn’t stop. It was impossible to stop. It was as if she was no longer in control of her own body and its actions. She felt as if she were floating outside of it, in a space safe from their reality, where her actions had no consequences and she was numb to the pain. She was forcing herself to regress, to fall back on a time when sex had been used to hide from the truth, and in this case, to stop him from asking her to admit what she couldn’t. It had worked for her before, it could work again.

She felt his hands slide to her shoulders, gently pushing her back, but she was quick and she shrugged him off, her own hands finding his chest and shoving him hard onto the bed. She could see his internal struggle, watched his dazed eyes darken and dilate as she loosened the top buttons of her dress and quickly straddled him. She assaulted his mouth again, pouring all of her fear and desperation into it and she felt him tense then whimper and flinch in pain when she bit down hard on his tender lip. He pulled back abruptly and lifted a hand to the reopened deep split in his lip, and she licked at her own, tasting the sharpness of his blood with her tongue.

“Sorry,” she stammered, reality flooding back in along with a hot flush that burned across her cheeks.

“Christ, just stop for a minute.” He touched his lip and looked at the blood, then at her, his brow furrowed. He sighed, pulling her arms from him to hold them down at her sides.

“I thought you liked pain,” she said cooly, raising her chin in defiance.

He laughed sharply, incredulously, shaking his head and narrowing his eyes. “Not like this, I don’t. Not when you’re using it as a fucking shield.”

She swallowed and clenched her jaw, her eyes flashing. “I’m not. I just want to move on.”

“There’s no moving on, not until you can be honest with me.” He wasn’t going to let her escape this. She looked at his hands holding her arms firmly at her sides, and then at his eyes, at first full of that familiar frustration he saved only for her, then becoming something else. Something that resembled pity and her stomach knotted and her irritation rose. She didn’t want to be pitied, and he should know that, he should fucking know it, so for the first time in a long time she used her strength against him, and ripped away.

“Fuck! I don’t want to talk about it!” She cried, standing and stumbling away from him until her back was pressed against the cool wall.

“No, it’s too late for that.”

“It was nothing!” She pulled the opening of her dress across her chest and folded her arms, suddenly feeling embarrassed and too exposed, even to him.

“Are you fucking kidding me?!” He rubbed his hands over her eyes then let them drop heavily onto the bed. “I’m the one feelin’ it. I know it exists! I’m the god here!”

She leapt at that, her fists pounding the wall as they dropped to her side. “Oh, so _now_ you’re ready to admit it? How fucking convenient.”

“At least I can admit it. At least I don’t live my life in fucking fear.”

“So what if I do, what does it matter to you anyway?”

”Because it matters.”

“Well, it shouldn’t. And I don’t owe you or anyone else an explanation.”

He stood and stepped towards her, and she exhaled shakily and pushed her shoulders back. “You’re right. I don’t need an explanation. But, what now? You think that it’ll just go away, and you can keep living your life in your little bubble? It’s in you now, Laura, and it ain’t going nowhere,” he said, pointing at her chest. “And we need it. _I_ need it. If we’re gonna be free of him, you have to...”

He took another step, filling in the space around her with his too large body and his too loud voice and his eyes that said too much, that asked for more than she could give, and she forced her eyes away, choosing to turn her face away and stare intently at the floor. She felt his fingers against her cheek, and she squeezed her eyes shut, inwardly cursing at a tear that escaped and the way her head instinctually fell to rest in his too large palm.

”This is not what you want, because this will never end. It’ll be you and me and constant running from that fucking cunt. He won’t stop until he has what he wants, and even then he’ll take and take and take until there’s nothing fucking left. You said it yourself, it’s why we’re here. Maybe everything else… maybe it blinded us for a while, but this,“ he said, pressing his hand tentatively to the center of her chest, “This is why we're here. This is what we need. And if we want the other stuff, well… we have to handle him first.”

Everything he said was right, and she knew it. Each word, each sentence, each touch of his hand and the closeness of his body, chipped away at the carefully constructed barricade around her. A barricade she had been using to protect her and him and what they had, but was now poisoning her mind. But she felt the truth, as much as she hated to admit it, slowly but surely reaching inside to challenge her fears, even as the thoughts pressed her to give it all up, to let him go before she fucked him up anymore.

She remembered Shadow’s face full of pain when he asked her to stop calling him Puppy. She remembered Sweeney’s eyes in the dim light of the Coq Noir when he realized she was pushing him away and denying her truth. She remembered how impossible it was for her to commit to anything outside of her own narrow point of view, never challenging her beliefs, never moving outside of her small zone of comfort, never trying for anymore than she imagined she could handle. She remembered how much she sucked at being a wife, and that one hurt the most. She couldn’t hurt him, more than she already had. She couldn’t be responsible for someone else’s survival, when she was barely capable of her own. If she didn’t agree to it, she wouldn’t be responsible.

“I can’t do it,” she whimpered, stifling a sob. “I’m sorry, but I can’t. And… if you don’t like it then… maybe you should just leave.”

“What? No, I’m not going anywhere.”

”I’m not who you thought I was. I… never will be. I can’t be what everyone needs me to be.”

He took a step back, dropping his arms hopelessly to his sides. “Laura, yes you can...”

“No! Just leave...”

She clenched her jaw, and squeezed her eyes shut, fighting the internal pull, the battle between what she needed to do and what she wanted to do and the mess that was her life in between. She felt like she was breaking down, like her skin was falling off of her, piece by piece, leaving only an empty shell that made up her sad existence. She felt herself sinking slowly into the darkness of the abyss.

“No,” he said, grabbing her arms and pulling her back to the surface. “Don’t do that. Don’t fall back into that shit. Open your eyes.”

“No!” She shouted, pushing the heels of her hands into her eyes, willing the darkness to overtake her.

“You’re being a fucking brat!”

“Fuck you! You don’t have any idea what it’s life!”

“Christ, woman! I do! Every fucking day I do. You just never see it. When you’re as old as me, and you’ve fucked up as much as me, you get real fucking good at making sure _no one_ sees it.”

She stilled, her breath coming in shallow as her heart slowed beneath her ribcage. ”Oh…” _I didn’t know…_

“You could _destroy_ me, don’t you understand that?” He continued, not giving her the time or space to process his confession. “You could fucking crush me. And I’m not talking about that strength you’re still clinging to. I’m talking about _you_. This. Who you are. The power you have over me….” he paused and took a deep breath, the muscles in his jaw working as he mulled over the words he needed to say, and when he spoke again his voice had softened, and a fresh ache pulled at her heart. “Do you even know what kind of belief that takes? What kind of trust?”

He sighed, frustrated and tired, having revealed too much and not enough, and she didn’t have to open her eyes to know he was rubbing the back of his neck, his teeth grinding and working the tense muscles in his jaw.

“I didn’t ask you to believe in me. I didn’t ask for that,” she whispered, her stifled sobs breaking free of her chest, sending fresh tears tumbling down her cheeks.

“You didn’t have to ask, Laura. You _never_ had to ask,” he said, quietly sighing.

She didn’t. She’d never once asked him to believe in her journey, or in her. She’d never had to ask because he had always been there. He’d always had her back, had always given her his loyalty, even from the very beginning, when she was too stubborn and awful to really see. When she was afraid to see.

“I’m here, Laura, and I’m in love with you. The real you. _This_ you. And you’re right, it’s not easy. It’s never been easy, it might not ever be easy. But I’m still here. I’m here. I _need_ you to be here.”

The abyss beneath her feet slowly dissipated, and she found the hard surface of the floor. She forced herself upright, and wiped at the tears on her cheeks, and rubbed her face with her hands. She felt foolish and weak, but not once had he ever made her feel alone, and she bit her lip and wrinkled her brow, all the words she needed to say paling in comparison to the raw vulnerability in his outpouring. She opened her eyes and looked up at him, at eyes that she recognized as his, that held hers without ever thinking of looking away, and the thoughts quieted, and her heart slowed, and he became the center of her vision, and then the center of her world.

“I’m not asking you to give up being you. I’m just asking you to try, can you trust that?” He asked, pushing a strand of hair behind her ear.

“I feel like I’m nothing,” she whispered between her sniffles. 

“You’re everything.”

”How can you possibly know that?”

“Because I’ve known you for a long time, and each time you’re more and more.”

“Like you?”

He didn’t say anything, because he didn’t need to. She already knew. They were cut from the same cloth, the other side to each other’s coin, their histories wound and rewound around the other, over and over again. A warmth bloomed from her chest, bringing with it a memory of him and her in some place, at some point in time, together. It was within reach. She could get them there. She owed that to him.

“I want to believe,” she whispered. “I want to believe.”

He nodded, pulled her to his chest and enveloped her in his arms, so large around her that they nearly hid her from sight. She pressed her face against his chest and breathed him in and she felt it, the feeling that had always been there. A feeling that could ground her. A feeling stronger than her doubts. Something that she could cling to when the dark settled in. Something solid she could hold on to when she let the light of belief change her existence.

“Are you ready?”

She took a deep breath and nodded, barely, but it was enough.


End file.
